X-23: Another Life
by V1ndicat0r
Summary: In this story X-23 was taken from the Facility as an infant thanks to her parents and now grows up among the X-Men, training for the day she can follow in her father's footsteps. However the Facility, Logan's enemies, and some shadowy figures will stand in the way.
1. Origins: Part 1

_A/N: I think this will be my most ambitious fic yet. This was mainly inspired by a fic known as "X-23: Changing Tides" by Nerdman3000, which I highly recommend you read. Now the biggest reason I decided to do this was because what that fic consisted of so far was a prologue and after looking at the date it was published I gave up hope that it would be updated. So I decided to do it myself though I changed a few details around to make it more my own, but I want to be clear that I in no way intend to steal from anyone. Now that being said I appreciate any and all feedback you good people can provide. Please pretty please._

**Prologue**

Alarms rang everywhere. Armed security guards were running this way and that. This lonesome facility, sequestered in the middle of nowhere, all of a sudden had turned into a war zone. BANG! BANG! BANG! Guns fired. All towards a single solitary man. He was short, hairy, muscular, and right now he looked more like a beast. With the metal claws coming out of his hands he may as well have been. Well they didn't call him Wolverine for nothing.

"Keep firing!" "Kill him!" The guards' efforts were in vain as Wolverine seemed to just walk through the bullets.

"RAAAAR!" He cleaved through the guards and they all dropped like flies.

Observing the carnage through a security camera was Martin Sutter, the facility's head and Zander Rice one of the leading scientists.

"How did Weapon X find us?" Sutter asked. Weapon X was another name Wolverine had used.

"It was Kinney Martin, that bitch turned on us, I told you we shouldn't have let her have her way," Rice said angrily. Sutter took out a pistol and loaded it.

"As I seem to recall Zander it was your idea for Kinney to act as the surrogate and carry X-23 to term," Sutter responded, "Don't play innocent here." Sutter finished loading the pistol. Right now Rice was panicking, Wolverine would find them and he would kill them both.

"Damnit!," he yelled, "Martin we need get out of here now. Get to another branch." Rice scrambled for all the documents and data on X-23 that had been saved. "If we can get to the chopper we can survive this and rebuild. This'll just be a setback."

Then a gunshot went off and Rice fell to the floor bleeding. Sutter stood over him, the gun smoking. Rice choked on his blood.

"Martin," he said strained.

"Not this time Zander. For what it's worth I'm sorry it had to come to this son," he said with hints of regret in his voice. One more shot to the head and Rice was dead. Sutter got on his comm. "Is the chopper prepped?"he asked.

"Yes it is sir," a voice replied.

"Good I will be there shortly."

"No please get back! AHHHH!"

One of the security guards screamed in pain at being eviscerated by Wolverine's claws. The guard fell to the floor and Wolverine teared at the door he was guarding. His claws sliced through the metal door like a hot knife through butter. Inside he found a woman with dark hair and green eyes, with a baby. The woman was Sarah Kinney, and the baby was X-23. With all the noise outside the baby was crying, but Sarah was trying her best to calm it down.

"Shh shh it's alright," she said, "We're going to leave this place."

"More guards are gonna be on their way, we gotta move now," Wolverine said. He took out a gun he had taken from one of the guards. He then handed it to Sarah. "Point this at whatever you wanna make dead, I'll follow behind you," he instructed.

Sarah took the gun and nodded yes. She left the room with Wolverine following close behind her, cradling the baby in one hand and the gun in the other. Surprisingly getting out had been easier than they had thought. Once they were both outside, Wolverine then instructed her to find a safe place to hide while he went back into the facility to finish the job. Sarah waited anxiously among some trees in the cold snow. Hoping that Wolverine would come back, and in fear that a Facility guard or member would find her, and all this would be for nothing. Then a loud boom came, and she saw the building go up in flames, with Wolverine walking out. Feeling relieved she came out of hiding and walked towards him.

"Thank you, for what you did," she said to him.

Wolverine just frowned at her, "I didn't do any of this for you." He looked down at the baby X-23.

"I know but it means so much to me, that you did it for her." Sarah said, "Look she stopped crying."

Wolverine pulled out a communicator device given to him by Department H. "Mac it's all done, we're waiting for pick up." He said into it.

"Copy that Logan, we'll be there shortly." A voice on the other end replied.

Twenty minutes later a Department H helicopter arrived on the scene, in it was a man who was wearing a uniform that resembled Captain America's. If Captain America was Canadian that is. This was James MacDonald Hudson, the Guardian, the man Wolverine had referred to by Mac,and leader of Alpha Flight, which could be seen as Canada's answer to the Avengers. Wolverine and Sarah then entered the chopper, and it took off.

"Department H is going to want to question you further Sarah," Guardian said, "We're going to need to know if any other branches exist, and if anyone else can still lead the organization."

"Yes I understand," she replied.

Wolverine then removed his mask, revealing his wild hair that looked as though it hadn't seen a comb in ages, and sideburns. This man looked for all intents and purposes more like an animal than a man. He just stared at Sarah, feeling right now resentment towards her, but at the same time the fact she had risked her life like she did for this child meant that this woman wasn't heartless, not in the least. Right now it was gonna be a while before he was ready to get over her less than immaculate choices. He watched as she cradled the baby, she looked just like a real mother.

"Laura," she said, "Her name is Laura, my Laura." She held Laura tightly to her chest not intent on letting go.

**Chapter 1**

**(Origins Pt 1)  
**

Flashback to a little less than a year ago. Sarah Kinney had been hired by the Facility to help them recreate Weapon X through cloning. Unfortunately the genome they had recovered from Wolverine was too heavily damaged, and Sarah had been forced to cut corners to make a viable specimen. One of the more obvious corners that had been cut was that the clone was female, but Sarah had also added some of her own DNA to complete X-23's genetic code. It was small but part of her was in the baby. However this was not what her employers wanted, but she defied them anyway and they conceded. Sarah's little victory came with a price though, the price was carrying X-23 to term. While she went through the pregnancy she noticed that she had changed. When she was building the clone she had only cared about the success of the project, seeing if she could do it, practically playing Dr. Frankenstein. Now that it was growing inside her body, she could feel emotions she thought her own father had stolen from her a long time ago. She knew what future laid ahead for this child, her child. They were going to put her through hell to make her into a weapon, she could not let that happen. Using all the resources she had, and her utmost discretion she got in contact with the original Weapon X, Wolverine, also called Logan. She did this by turning herself over to Department H and telling him about the deed. Needless to say Wolverine was furious.

"How do you sleep at night?" he asked.

"How do you think," she replied, "Believe me Logan there is nothing you can say or do to me that will make me feel any worse than I already do. But that doesn't matter. If we don't act, that girl is going to suffer. She'll be tortured every day of her life, so that they can turn her into a killing machine. I'm not asking you to do this for me, do it for her. Do it so she won't have to suffer like you did. Please."

She had practically sobbed her eyes out begging him to spare the infant X-23 the same fate that befallen him when Weapon X had found him. Reluctantly Logan conceded but told Guardian he was doing this solo.

Present day, at Department H HQ, Sarah divulged every detail about the Facility she could. She told them they had originally been part of Weapon X but branched off when the program was shut down. She also gave them the names of the three people most likely to lead, Martin Sutter, Zander Rice, and Adam Harkins. She gave them all the locations she was aware of, and the Facility's mission, to make weapons to be sold at the highest bidder. All the while she had left the infant Laura with Logan. Logan didn't particularly like children, frankly he found them a little too noisy and annoying. Especially considering he had enhanced hearing. Course now that he got a good look at Laura, he did feel a little softness for her, not that he would admit it. He had set her lying on a chair wrapped in a blanket. Logan went to go get a beer and used one of his claws as a makeshift bottle opener. Right when it went SNIKT, Laura cooed. He let out an acknowledging grunt.

"You like that huh?" She reached out her hands as if she wanted to touch it. "Not a chance kid, these things are razor sharp, they'll cut you, and that's bad." He retracted it and took a swig of the beer. "You'll get your own when you get older, they'll be made of bone though. Probably also the healing and senses to. Aw geez I hope I don't have to be around to explain that to you." he rubbed the back of his neck. Laura kept reaching out to him, just confusing him.

"I'm not popping my claws just so you can laugh, these things hurt coming out every time." he said firmly. Logan was then joined by James' wife Heather.

"I think she wants you to hold her Logan." she said

"That it?" he asked.

"Wow I feel sorry for the poor thing, she has the worst person possible for a father." she said jokingly.

"Yeah yeah yuck it up Heather," he replied sardonically.

He picked Laura and held her in his arms. She looked at him with those green eyes, eyes she obviously got from her mother full of innocence, she had been saved from being put through a hell that no one, especially a child, should have to endure. Then Sarah entered the room having finished answering all of Department H's questions. Logan handed her Laura.

"Department H will set you up with a new residence somewhere we can watch you and keep you and Laura safe should the Facility come looking for you. We'll also see if we can find you employment." James said.

"Thank you," she said.

"Sarah," Logan said.

"Yes," Sarah replied. "

Look normally I wouldn't do this but this is for Laura's sake. I still got my commitments to Alpha Flight and Department H so I can't promise I'll be there all the time to help raise the girl, but I'll show when I can."

"You would really do that?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, "I also got money I can spare so you don't have to work so hard."

Tears of joy welled up in her eyes. She embraced the man with her free arm.

"Thank you so much." she said gratefully.

Seven years later, Sarah and Laura had managed to eek out a comfortable living in Toronto. Department H had gotten Sarah a job that allowed her to work at home and be around Laura 24/7. Laura had no memory of the Facility and as far as she knew this was the way it had always been. Just her, her mother, and her father on the occasions he showed up. Sarah had gotten her enrolled in one of the elementary schools and Laura did well at it. Her grades were the among the highest in the class, though her teachers were a bit concerned about her social skills. It's not that Laura didn't play well with others, she was just a bit more individualistic than most of the children her age. She really was not much of a team player, to which Sarah responded, "Yes she gets that from her father."

One day Sarah received a call from her sister Debbie. Debbie had wanted to see her niece and Logan, as well introduce her own daughter Megan to them since she had found out.

"Believe me Debbie I'd love to see you again after all this time." Sarah said.

"Well then what's stopping you Sarah?" Debbie asked.

"It's complicated, especially since Logan's hardly around."

"What possible excuse could that man have for not being around his own daughter more often?"

"He's in the military, that's why." Sarah said sadly. Technically true, but entirely misleading.

"Oh I see." said Debbie.

"Logan's due for another visit soon, I'll talk to him then." Sarah said.

"That's fine Sarah. Listen, Megan thought about sending you and Laura some drawings she made,"

"Of course, Megan can send us whatever she likes. We would love that." said Sarah.

Just when she got done with her phone call she came in on Laura watching the Pinocchio tape Logan had bought for her birthday. It was a story she had been read to by her mother since she was a baby. The first time she watched it she said she liked the book better cause it had more stuff in it, but liked the movie anyway, mostly for Jiminy Cricket. She thought he was funny. Just then they heard a car pull up, and Laura's face lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Daddy's home!" the excited girl yelled.

She darted out the door and ran to meet her father. She ran into him and hugged him.

"I missed you Daddy." she said.

"Yeah I missed ya to pumpkin," he ruffled her hair. Then Laura noticed something.

"What's wrong, you sound like you got hurt." she asked. Logan just smiled back at her.

"Nuthin ya need to worry about, now how are you and your mother doing?" he asked.

"We're okay," she said as they walked back inside.

"That all, nuthin to tell me about with school?" he asked.

"I had a parent-teacher conference today." she said.

"You're not getting in trouble are ya?" he asked.

"No," she shook her head.

"Good girl." he said. When they got inside Sarah approached them

"Laura go watch your movie, I need to speak with your father." she said. Laura did as she was told and went back to the living room.

"Please tell me you got beer in here." he said.

"I always keep some around for when you show up," she smiled.

Logan sat down in the kitchen, the man clearly was in pain, and wasn't doing a good job of hiding it. Sarah pulled out a beer from the fridge and gave it to Logan.

"Good lord Logan what happened to you?" Sarah asked.

"I went twenty rounds with the Hulk that's what." he said.

"That's hilarious, now what really happened?" she asked. Logan just shot her a telling look.

"Oh my god, you really did?" she asked with astonishment.

"You're looking at probably the only man to ever survive a smackdown with the Hulk," Logan said as if proud of his accomplishment.

"Jesus Logan, I know you have that indestructible skeleton and healing factor, but this has gotta be a whole new level of reckless for you. I bet you did this because you thought it would be fun." she said in an accusing tone.

"Partially yeah," he said. Sarah put her hands on her hips and shook her head.

At first Logan and Sarah didn't really speak much except when it concerned Laura. But as time had gone on and his visits more frequent, the two had developed a mutual attraction for one another. They shared the same bed on the occasions he was around for longer periods of time. They had even had sex quite a few times. As a result Logan had become much more civil with Sarah, and had really taken to the role of fatherhood. On the times the three were seen together they did look like a real family. Course that also meant Logan had to deal with Sarah when she went into what James and Heather had affectionately dubbed her "wife-mode".

"Logan I need you to be more careful with yourself. Laura is picking up behaviors from you in spite of your absence." she said. "She's going to get her powers when she gets older, and she's going to have the same ones as you. Including your healing factor and I don't want her thinking she's invincible because of that."

"You're worrying too much. She'll know she's not, Laura's a smart girl." he said trying to reassure her.

"Yes she is. She's certainly smarter than you, course you don't set much of a benchmark." Sarah said flirtatiously. And with that two began a make out session that lasted until Laura walked in and demanded her parents stop kissing each other so she could eat.

After they had finished eating, Sarah brought up the call she got from Debbie.

"Your sister wants to see us, huh?" Logan asked.

"She's been anxious to meet Laura since I told her. She also has a daughter Laura's age. Her name's Megan." said Sarah.

"We're still tracking down the Facility eggheads. I can't guarantee at this point we wouldn't be putting them at risk." said Logan.

Sarah sighed, "I know. I suppose it was too much to hope for. It's just that Laura doesn't really have any friends her age at school. It's what her teacher was telling me at the parent-teacher conference today. Academically she excels, but her social skills are lacking."

"How bad is it?" Logan asked.

"Bad enough that you would notice, but not bad enough to be considered a problem." Sarah replied, "I think it's because she knows she's a mutant so she doesn't relate to the other children as well."

There was silence between the couple for a bit.

"I'll see what I can work out, but I'm not making any promises Sarah." he said.

"Thank you Logan," said Sarah gratefully.

A month following the discussion, Logan came by Sarah's house with a surprise.

"Are you serious, we can visit Debbie?" Sarah asked amazed.

"Yeah me and Mac think it's safe. We don't think the Facility's shadowing her." he said.

Sarah hugged him, "Thank you so much Logan," she said to him.

"You know I'd do anything for you and Laura darlin'," Logan replied.

"Oh there must be some way I can repay you for this," Sarah said lustfully as she began to unbutton her shirt."

"Oh that's definitely the best way to pay me back," he said grinning. With that the two locked lips, made their way to Sarah's bedroom, and locked the door.

A couple of days later the three arrived in San Francisco to visit Debbie and Megan. Sarah and Debbie were thrilled to see each other after so long.

"God I haven't seen you this happy in years Sarah," Debbie remarked.

"Yes well, Laura changed that for me," she said.

Debbie looked at the seven year old girl, as she shyly clung to her mother.

"Hello Laura, do you know who I am," she asked.

"You're Aunt Debbie," she said.

"Aren't you smart," Debbie said. She then brought her daughter Megan out. "This is Megan Laura, she's the one that's been sending you and your mother those drawings."

The two girls just looked at each other. One with long black hair and the other with short blonde hair.

Then Laura grinned and said, "I like you."

"I like you to," said Megan.

And like the that the two girls ran off to play. They must have played for several hours while Sarah and Debbie got reacquainted with each other. Debbie also got to know Logan and took a liking to him. Though there was one thing Debbie was curious about.

"Why haven't you two gotten married yet, you practically look like a married couple." she said.

"Well we... just don't feel the need to. I mean our family's not ideal, but we make it work. Course I'm amazed that you've managed to raise Megan this well by yourself." Sarah said.

"Yeah it was a challenge, but it's been worth it." Debbie said.

"What happened to the girl's father?" Logan asked.

"He just left and never came back. It happened before Megan was born."

Debbie said as she looked out the window watching Laura and Megan play.

"Megan doesn't have too many friends her age, it's nice to see someone that genuinely likes her."

"Laura's the same way, though it's partially due to her inheriting some of Logan's more charming personality traits." Sarah said. The two sisters giggled at Logan's expense.

Outside Megan and Laura were drawing with Megan's crayons. Between the two Megan was the better artist, not that Laura did a bad job, she just wasn't as creative. All Laura could manage was something resembling a stick figure, while Megan seemed to have a better grasp on anatomy, given her age.

"How did you get so good Megan?" Laura asked.

"When my mom bought me coloring books I got bored with them real fast, so I drew on the blank pages. I like drawing my own stuff." Megan replied. "What do you do for fun?"

"I like reading books," said Laura, "My mom's read to me since I was a baby."

"Do you have a lot of friends back home?" asked Megan.

"No," said Laura, "No one really talks to me and I don't really talk to them."

"It's the same for me," said Megan, "I'm by myself a lot. I don't really have any friends."

"Well I'm your friend Megan," said Laura.

"Yeah you're my best friend," Megan said grinning while holding a drawing she made of her and Laura.

The two girls grew so attached to each other it was almost impossible for their mothers to separate them when Logan, Sarah, and Laura had to go back to Toronto. But Laura left knowing she had a real friend at last in her cousin.


	2. Origins: Part 2

**Chapter 2**

**(Origins Pt 2)  
**

A few months after Logan's fight with the Hulk he received a visit from a man known as Charles Xavier. When Logan met the man in question he was taken aback by what he saw. He was a bald cripple in a wheelchair, so at first sight Logan wasn't really sure what to think of him.

"So I hear you wanna have words with me Chuck," he said.

"Quite," Xavier replied, "You survived an encounter with the Hulk, not many men can say they've done that. Of course you are not just any man now are you Logan?"

Logan was impressed, Xavier had done his homework on him. He knew what he was capable of.

"Okay I'll bite, what do you want from me?" he asked.

Xavier smirked, "I am here to make you an offer. I have put together a team of mutants known as the X-Men in Westchester, New York, and I want you to be part of it. Our mission is to help protect the world and prove that mutants are not a threat to the human race, as well to help teach young mutants how to use their gifts responsibly. In return for joining, I can help you find the answers to your past that you are looking for."

Logan was stunned. Ever since he had broken out of that lab all those years ago and found James and Heather, his past had been a mystery to him. Right now all he had was a name and he wasn't even sure it was his. He still didn't know who he was, where he had come from, or what he had done.

"I can help you Logan." Xavier said but this time Logan heard his voice in his mind. "Yes I'm like you. I am a mutant."

Logan thought for a moment. How this man could help him find the answers to his past he had been searching for. Department H had done what they could but so far had no luck in turning up anything useful, just a bunch of dead ends, and then he thought about Sarah and Laura, how he also had his obligations to them.

"I've got a kid," he said.

"I already had taken that into consideration, we can arrange to move your daughter and her mother to the institute with you." Xavier said.

Logan pondered the offer for a moment. At this point what did he have to lose. He then reached out his hand to Xavier.

"Alright I'm in." he said. The two men shook hands and with that Logan would join the X-Men.

Logan, Sarah, and Laura arrived at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. Laura had never seen a school this big before in her life.

"Are we really gonna live here now?" she asked.

"Yes Laura, and you're also going to go to school here to." her mother replied.

"Wow." Laura said in amazement.

Laura walked inside the building and was breathless at how massive the inside was and how nice everything looked.

"Yeah that's what I thought the first time I came here to." a girl's voice said. Laura turned to see a girl of about thirteen or fourteen, with wavy brown hair. "Hi I'm Kitty, what's your name?" Kitty said as she knelt down to Laura's height.

"I'm Laura," she responded.

"That's a pretty name," Kitty said, "Well you're gonna have fun here Laura. I mean you might not be a mutant, but you'll probably fit in somehow."

"I am a mutant,"Laura said, "I just haven't gotten my powers yet." Kitty was surprised at how sure the little girl was that she was a mutant.

"Really how do you know that?" she asked.

"My mom said I am, my mom knows a lot about mutants." Laura replied.

"Looks like you've made a friend Laura," Sarah said as she walked in carrying some luggage.

"Her name is Kitty," said Laura as she pointed to the teenager.

"Hi Mrs... uh" Kitty said awkwardly as she realized she didn't know Sarah's surname, "I'm sorry."

"Sarah will do dear," Sarah said as she patted Kitty on the shoulder.

"Oh, well on behalf of everyone welcome to Xavier's," Kitty said.

"Tish tosh Katherine, someone should help the poor woman with her luggage," said a blue furry bespectacled mutant that looked like a cross between an ape and a cat.

"I believe that's the men's job Dr. McCoy," Kitty said. McCoy raised his eyebrows at the realization the girl was right. "As always Katherine, your logic is infallible my dear," he said and then he reached out his hand to Sarah, "Madam, Dr. Henry McCoy, a pleasure to meet your acquaintance."

Sarah shook his hand, "Sarah Kinney, likewise."

Logan then walked in. "Oh this must be your husband, the famous Logan Charles has been telling us about." McCoy said.

"Heh not quite bub," he said.

"We're not married, it's a long and complicated story," Sarah interjected.

"Oh," McCoy said embarrassed, "My apologies, I just assumed that, oh dear me this is not a good day to be a scientist." Logan slapped him on the back, McCoy taken quite aback at the gesture,

"Hey no harm no foul."

"Well I suppose the least I could do to redeem myself in your eyes, is to assist in moving your luggage, and help the three of you get settled in." McCoy offered.

"Knock yourself out," Logan replied.

After getting settled in Logan and Sarah had gotten to meet some of the other X-Men; Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Kurt Wagner, Warren Worthington, Betsy Braddock, Peter Rasputin, Bobby Drake, Remy LeBeau, Ororo Munroe, and Rogue. Logan was impressed by what he saw, most of them could handle themselves in a fight, and if not their powers more than compensated.

"Nice little band of soldiers you got here Chuck." Logan said in Charles' private study.

"Well they don't fight a war so much as save lives," Charles replied.

"Exactly what will our positions at the institute be Professor?" Sarah asked.

"Charles will do Sarah, there's no need for such formalities. Now as for what you and Logan will be doing here. Logan will serve as one of the X-Men, as well help instructing some of the students here. You on the other hand, have quite the detailed knowledge of the X-Gene, and as someone who has studied the mutant phenomenon as extensively as I have, I must say your knowledge impresses me Sarah." Charles said.

"Well thank you," she said.

"I believe that your knowledge would prove an invaluable asset to us as one of the X-Men's scientific advisers and as one of the institute's instructors" Sarah shook his hand.

"I would be honored to Charles," she said, "However there is still the matter of our daughter's education."

" Several of the X-Men serve as instructors here as well. Laura will be taught by them privately as we don't offer any classes below a typical middle school education."

Logan had been put in charge of combat instruction with the students dubbed the New Mutants which was made up of Kitty, Sam Guthrie, Amara Aquila, Rahne Sinclair, Roberto de Costa, Dani Moonstar, Xian Coy Manh, and Tabitha Smith. He ran things like a drill sergeant, tough, but he was making sure these kids could hold their own, so he pulled no punches with them. He wasn't as harsh with Kitty as the rest, which everyone suspected was cause she was sort of Laura's defacto babysitter, when her parents were out. Laura was literally the youngest student at the institute as there were no children her age there. She had managed to make friends with some of the students, like Rahne and Dani, but they tended to treat her like the little sister, which given the age gap, was fairly understandable. She didn't mind it all that much, she liked the attention she got, and she actually felt at home with all the mutants around her. Laura couldn't wait for the day for when she got her powers, so she could train to be an X-Man like her father. Everyone was taken aback that she was actually anxious about being a mutant, since mutants had a hard time in the world with the endless prejudice from humans.

"You think you're gonna have claws just like your dad, Laura?" Kitty asked.

"Yeah mom said so," she replied as she was doing homework with Kitty.

"Guess that makes sense." Kitty said.

"Could your daddy walk through stuff?" Laura asked.

"No," Kitty replied, "Both my parents are human."

"So then how did you get your powers?" the little girl asked.

"No idea really," Kitty said, "The Professor said the X-Gene is unpredictable that way." Then Sarah walked in with a stack of drawings in her hand.

"Megan sent you these," she said. Laura took the drawings happily, she loved what Megan sent.

"Make sure you send her a thank you letter."

"Yes mom," Laura said.

"Kitty Logan and I are going on a double date with Scott and Jean," Sarah said to the older girl.

"No sugar, don't let her watch too much TV, make sure she finishes her schoolwork, and she's in bed by 10." Kitty recited.

"Thank you Kitty," said Sarah and she walked off.

"So who's Megan," Kitty asked.

"She's my cousin, she's my best friend," Laura said as she went through the drawings.

"Really?" Kitty asked.

"Yeah. She's really nice," Laura said.

Flash forward a few years. Laura was now around ten. Sarah and Logan had gotten married, feeling that they had played at being a married couple for so long, they might as well make it official. Debbie and Megan had come by to Westchester once or twice to visit. Megan thought all the mutants were cool. The X-Men had made a name for themselves among the superhero community even earning the respect of the Avengers, though the anti-mutant prejudice was still there. Logan was beginning to recover memories little by little but his past was still clouded in a thick fog. Right now all he could remember was a woman named Silverfox and something called Team X. Sarah was helping him through it, urging him to keep a journal of what he did remember. She did her best to support him through the ordeal. During their time at the Xavier Institute, they had formed strong friendships with the other X-Men, Logan with Kurt, Warren, and Peter mainly, while on Sarah's side it was with Jean and Ororo. They were then joined by one of the X-Men's former enemies Emma Frost, whom Sarah took something of a dislike to. Couldn't exactly blame her since during one attack on the X-Men that Emma had coordinated, Laura had nearly gotten seriously hurt were it not for Kitty. Sarah tended to keep Emma at arm's length. One day while Sarah was grading biology papers, Sam's was the worst, her phone rang.

"Hello."

"Sarah," it was Debbie on the other end she sounded worried.

"I didn't know who else to come to Sarah. Oh God." Debbie broke out sobbing.

"Debbie, what's wrong," she asked.

"It's Megan, she's gone. Someone took her. Someone took my baby." Debbie cried.

After the phone call was finished, Sarah immediately went to Logan, and right after hearing the story they headed right out to San Francisco. When they got there Logan asked to see Megan's room so he could get her scent and the kidnapper's. While sniffing around Logan picked up something, that really got him worried. It was a scent he knew all too well.

"Of all people it had to be you," he said to himself. He left Megan's room.

"Did you find what you needed?" Debbie asked.

"Yeah, I'm gonna get Megan back Debbie. Sarah stay with her." he said.

Logan left, there had been a reason he left Sarah with her sister, if who he thought took Megan really did, then things were about to get all kinds of ugly.

Logan tracked scents for over two hours. Eventually coming across an abandoned building in town. He walked inside and sniffed. He got Megan's scent. He found Megan unconscious, bound, gagged, and blindfolded in a corner. There were some cuts and bruises on her but the girl would live albeit with a few psychological and emotional scars. And that's when it occurred to Logan,

"He wouldn't let her live."

And then he looked up at the wall and painted in red paint was the word, "Sucker" on it. Megan was a distraction, he had gone after Sarah.

Sarah was still comforting Debbie, "It's going to be alright Debbie. Logan will bring Megan home, and this will all be over like a bad dream."

Then she heard a knock at the door, "That must be him."

As Sarah opened the door a large arm forced it open. In the doorway standing there wasn't Logan but a large man with long blonde hair almost as hairy as Logan. He wore a ratty looking overcoat, had claws, and his smile showed teeth that left him looking like more of a beast than Logan. Sarah knew who he was.

"Creed," she said.

Victor Creed also called Sabretooth, and Logan's archenemy. Creed took her by the throat and lifted her off the ground.

"Good you still remember me sweetheart," he said in a gravely voice that sounded more like a growl. Debbie stood there frozen in horror.

"Debbie get out of here," Sarah yelled.

Creed bashed Sarah's head against the wall and dropped her to the floor. Debbie tried to run but Creed caught her anyway and pinned her to the floor.

"If you makes you feel any better, personally I think you're getting the better deal Debbie," he whispered menacingly into her ear.

Logan raced to Debbie's house, he had left Megan at a police station. He was going to deal with Creed himself. Creed had a history of killing women close to Logan and he would be damned before he let that happen to either Debbie or Sarah. Logan managed to get to Debbie's house but he smelled blood, he was too late.

"No no no," he said out loud.

He walked in and found Sarah unconscious but still alive, but if Sarah was still alive then that meant. He turned his head and saw Creed crouched over over Debbie's body and his hands covered in blood, her blood.

Creed turned his head to Logan and grinned, "Guess I shouldn't have taken my time huh runt." He stood up and took off his coat. "This is fine, I'll just take you out of the fight and have you watch while I enjoy that nice wife of yours."

SNIKT Logan charged at Creed completely berserk. The fight between the two was monstrous. They tore chucks of flesh out each other and turned what was once a nice domestic residence into a war zone. It ended with Logan and Creed crashing through a window on to the lawn and surrounded by armed SWAT officers.

"Stand down sir," one of the officers commanded.

Logan calmed himself down and retracted his claws, but kept Creed pinned down until the SWAT team chained him up. Logan went back into Debbie's house and found Sarah crying over her sister's body. He took her in his arms giving what little comfort he could to her. They buried Debbie two weeks later. Debbie had named Logan and Sarah, Megan's legal guardians in case of her death so Megan moved into the Institute with them. Laura had done her best to help her through it, she had been hurt by it to. She loved her aunt and now her cousin and best friend was alone with her and her parents as her only family. The hurt never really went away, her mother's death had left a hole in Megan's heart, but slowly she managed to heal with her family's help and the X-Men.

In a cell, Creed was restrained to a wall, for meal time. His tray was slid through the access port and then the restraints were released. He picked up a note on the tray that said, "You know what to do". Just then a guard brought in a man that looked just like him. He closed the door and Creed grinned that animal grin of his. He killed the dupe, picked up the potato which was actually plastic explosive, and stuck a detonator in. He walked out of his cell, the explosion going off behind him. He evaded detection by guards and right when he turned a corner someone threw a bag over his face and stuffed him into a van. When the van finally stopped Creed was tossed out and the bag removed.

"Victor Creed," a man said.

"What business you got with me?" he asked.

"My name is Martin Sutter, you may consider me your new employer Mr. Creed," Sutter replied.

_A/N: I'm like Joss Whedon, I kill the last person you expect and boy is it a tragedy._


	3. Bloodlines: Part 1

**Chapter 3**

**(Bloodlines Pt 1)  
**

_Four years later_

"Girls get up," Sarah said at Laura and Megan's bedroom door.

Not hearing any activity from the other side Sarah opened the door and found the two teenagers still lying in bed. She surveyed the room which looked like it hadn't been cleaned up in years with clothes all over the floor and books that Laura hadn't bothered to put away. Though compared to some of the other girls on campus this hardly qualified as a disaster zone. The wall was adorned with either some of Megan's artwork or posters of some new band that the girls had gotten into, and of course there was that poster for "Ginger Snaps" they had hung on the door. They kept quoting the suicide pledge from the movie for laughs, "_Out by sixteen or dead on the scene, but together forever. United against life as we know it._" They were just being girls so Sarah and everyone else laughed it off. She shook Laura to get her to wake up. Laura moaned from being woken.

"I'm up mom I'm up," she said still half asleep. Sarah did the same thing to Megan.

"Both of you get dressed and head downstairs for breakfast," she said.

"Yeah sure Aunt Sarah," Megan said still tired.

After the girls had brushed their teeth and gotten dressed they went downstairs to the cafeteria for breakfast. They were both decked out in dark gothic looking clothes, of which Megan had been the first to adopt and Laura just followed behind. After getting breakfast they got joined by an energetic Chinese-American girl named Jubilation Lee, but because Jubilation was too long to say in conversation everyone just stuck with calling her Jubilee, and given that her power was to make fireworks, the name fit.

"So how are my two best friends doing today," she said.

"Ah you know Jube, usual," said Laura.

"Someone still hasn't gotten her powers yet," Jubilee teased.

"Lots of mutants are late bloomers," said Laura.

"If you say so," Jubilee said back.

Laura was somewhat embarrassed at the fact that at fourteen it seemed like every other part of her body had gotten the message but for some reason her powers still lagged behind. She thought for sure this would be the year her claws finally came out. "Oh sure nature, let me get my period, but not my powers," she thought to herself.

Combat training, one of the classes Laura was really good at. Logan had her trained in martial arts from a young age saying, "I'm not gonna have my daughter be a victim." And after all he had put her through it was clear that Laura could not only win a fight, she could lay some serious hurt on an opponent if she wanted to. Of course there was one problem. Just one but it was a pretty major problem. Laura had difficulty controlling her temper, one of those things she had inevitably inherited from Logan. Logan had remembered some techniques and exercises from his time in Japan that were meant to help with this, course when you were working with a teenage girl success became relative. Laura could control it, but she still had buttons that if pressed set her off. And no one knew how to push her buttons better than Julian Keller, the self-proclaimed big man on campus. Keller came from a rich family, pretty much grown up with the idea that he was better than everyone else and he had to prove it. He pushed himself to prove that fact and usually he could back up his big talk, but it didn't make him an easy person to like. And given that he had extremely potent telekinetic powers and was Frost's favorite student, that only made his ego bigger. Now he antagonized Laura one of two ways; one he mocked her for being a faculty kid, that she never had to work for anything, when the opposite was true. Or two, he mocked her and Megan for being humans by calling them flatscans. As long as Laura didn't have to interact with him, things were okay, but not today. Today she had Keller for a sparring partner, so things could not be worse. She faced him down and took her position.

"Keller I don't like you and you don't like me, but could yo

u at least be bothered to shut up so we can both get this over and avoid each other for the rest of the day?"

"I don't know," he replied as he blocked one of her strikes, "I suppose I could cut a cute human chick some slack."

"That was old the first twenty times and it's old now," Laura said back.

"Yeah well remember I can still move crap with a thought and well what can you do?" Keller taunted.

"I can still kick your ass," she said.

Just as Laura had finished her comeback she found that all of a sudden it was now very difficult to move. She looked into Keller's eyes and noticed a subtle green glow in them indicating that he was telekinetically slowing her movements.

"Keller," she grunted.

"Come on this is a love grab," he said.

"Let go or I'll..."

"Or what," Keller asked, "You'll call your dad for help. Typical."

And that was the straw that broke the camel's back, Laura really started grunting sounding more like an animal, and then skin by her knuckles started to get pushed from the inside. And then two bone claws split open from her both her hands and a single claw did the same in both her feet. Stunned by what he saw, Keller let his grip go and Laura pounced on him and pinned him to the ground holding him at claw point. Laura looked at what just happened and got up from off him. She looked at her claws and smiled.

"Finally!" she yelled with glee. She then looked at Keller who was still lying on the ground and held up one set of her claws to his face, "Now who's a flatscan?" she said smugly.

Back in Laura and Megan's room, the girls were celebrating with Jubilee Laura's powers finally coming out.

"Oh my god Laura," said Megan excited that her cousin had finally gotten her powers, "This is so awesome."

"I know," said Laura ecstatic as she unsheathed a set again.

"Woah, doesn't that hurt," Megan asked.

"A little but I can take it," Laura replied.

"Well we're all happy for you girlfriend," Jubilee said giving her a best friend hug, "We need to celebrate an occasion like this proper."

"This isn't gonna be like the time I got my period and Megan baked a strawberry cake, cause that was embarrassing." Laura said.

"Yeah but it was funny as hell," Megan snickered.

"Oh codenames," Jubilee chimed, "You gotta pick a codename."

"Oh yeah," Laura said, "Ah... Talon?"

"But you're not a bird," Jubilee said.

"Wild Thing?" Megan suggested.

"Seriously, Wild Thing?" Laura asked, "Megan that's stupid."

"Yeah you're right. Really sounds like someone put thought into it." Megan said back.

"Cougar?" Jubilee suggested.

The girls sat in silence for a moment, then shook their heads in disgust due to the unfortunate connotation of the name. Then the door opened and in walked Sarah and Logan.

"Oh honey I'm so proud of you," Sarah said as she hugged her daughter, "I told you the wait would be worth it."

"Yeah mom you were right," Laura said.

Then Logan cleared his throat as he took out a folded X uniform and held it out to Laura.

"Is... is this really my uniform?" Laura asked as she took it from him.

"Yeah. Your mother and I had it made for your last birthday, course I didn't think it take this long for your claws to finally come out," Logan said back.

Laura unfolded it, it looked like her father's uniform with a few differences, for one it didn't come with a mask. The top had sleeves that came to the middle of her arms and and an X logo on the right. It came with fingerless gloves that covered her whole forearms with two slits for her claws. It was colored black and yellow, with a similar stripe pattern to Logan's. Laura hugged her father like a kid on Christmas morning.

"Thanks dad," she said. Logan ruffled her hair.

"You finally earned it pumpkin. Now tomorrow you and me are gonna skip class so I can show you how to use your senses." Laura couldn't have had a better day. "Oh and don't be in a rush to pick a codename, we still got time before we get you into a squad." Logan said.

"Yeah dad," Laura replied staring at her new uniform with amazement.

_A/N: What, you were expecting some Helix? No such thing in my house. Now I don't hate Hellion by any means, but I never really liked him. I always found him a pretty dull character, like everything about him from his personality to his powers I felt like I had seen done better by someone else, and I'm glad he's out of the picture as far as X-23's concerned right now. Now if you like Helix that's cool, but it's not gonna be happening in this fic.  
On a side note I'm taking suggestions for a codename for Laura, got any?_


	4. Bloodlines: Part 2

**Chapter 4**

**(Bloodlines: Pt 2)  
**

The next day Logan shook Laura up. Laura's eyes fluttered open and she looked at her alarm clock.

"Dad it's 4 in the morning." she said half asleep.

"Yeah and this is the best time to get you started. So get out of bed and get suited up." Logan said, keeping his voice low enough that he didn't wake Megan.

"Alright," Laura moaned.

She stretched a little and got herself out of bed, while Logan walked out of her room. She took out her X uniform and put it on, she went over to the mirror on her wall and posed for a little in front of it. She felt like a girl that just put on her prom dress. "This is the best day of my life," kept playing over and over in her head. She crept out of her bedroom and carefully closed the door.

"Okay I'm ready," she said to her dad.

Taking Logan's motorcycle, the father-daughter pair took off to the surrounding forest. Logan then led Laura into the forest and stopped at what seemed like a good spot and sat down on a log and Laura did the same. This was a bit like some of the hunting trips Logan had taken Laura on when she was growing up. He had done it to teach her how to be a good tracker and to toughen her up as well.

"Alright," he said, "Now first thing I want you to get used to is using your sense of smell and hearing. You've probably noticed that they've gotten sharper since your mutation kicked in."

"Yeah everything smells either better or worse and sounds louder now," Laura responded.

"Good, those are gonna be more useful to you then your eyes ever will, and that's how you're gonna track from now on." Logan said. He took out a bandana and put it around Laura's eyes so she couldn't see. "We're gonna have a little game of hide and seek. Memorize my scent, and listen for any noises I make and you should be able to find me." he instructed.

"Okay," Laura said.

She sniffed the air to get her father's scent. After Logan decided she had had enough time, Logan took off and Laura followed. So far she was doing a good job tracking him, but Logan wasn't gonna take it easy on her. Gradually he racked up the difficulty, and it got harder and harder. After about several hours Laura really was doing her damnedest to track him, she sniffed around for anything that vaguely smelled like her dad, trying to get a lead on him. Somewhere a mile or two away Logan was sitting, waiting for Laura to find him. Eventually he felt a teenager's arms wrap themselves around his neck.

"Found you dad," Laura said triumphantly as she pulled the bandana off her eyes.

"I knew you would, you're my kid." he said.

Laura sat right next to him and Logan handed her a can of beer from the cooler he brought with them.

"Whoa seriously?" she asked astonished as she held the can.

"Just don't tell your mother I let you," Logan said.

Laura sipped the drink but spit it out once it hit her mouth. "Ugh dad how can you drink this?" she asked.

"You gotta let the taste grow on you." he said

"Thanks dad but I think I'll pass on beer from now on," she said.

"Thought that might happen," Logan said and he took out a pop.

"Thanks dad," Laura said.

While she downed the drink down, Logan asked her, "You ready to do that again?"

"Hell yeah," Laura said grinning.

They must have spent the whole day out there. When they finally came back it was practically dusk. Laura burst through her bedroom and plopped onto her bed in her X Uniform looking like she was running the mother of all highs.

"So you had a good day then?" Megan asked as she tried to finish her Algerbra work.

"Best day ever," Laura replied content.

"Good cause that pile over there's all the schoolwork you gotta get caught up on thanks to Uncle Logan," Megan said as she pointed with her pencil to a pile of Laura's textbooks with a list on top of them.

"Ahhhh I don't care," Laura said, "This day was too great for anything to ruin it."

Megan just smirked and rolled her eyes. While Laura went through her copy of "The Sound of the Mountain" Megan asked, "Hey did you come up with a codename while you were out?"

"No not really," Laura said back, "Didn't really have time to while I was tracking Dad."

"Was that all you did?" Megan asked somewhat perplexed, she thought they would have done more besides that.

"We sparred a couple times, but mostly it was me tracking him," Laura said.

"So now you can track people by smell," Megan said.

"And hearing," Laura interjected, "But tracking's always been easy for me. When I was little Dad took me hunting, taught me how to track animals. When I was doing it, I don't know it just felt right. Like..."

"Like an instinct or something?" Megan asked.

"Yeah," Laura said.

"You and Uncle Logan gonna do this again?" Megan asked.

"Yeah next week," Laura said, "And dad said next week I'm also gonna be put on a squad and start my Danger Room sessions."

"You're finally living your dream," Megan said nonchalantly.

Laura raised her eyebrow at the way she had said it. "Okay what's bugging you?" Laura asked.

"Huh, oh nothing," Megan said, "Hey Laura if you don't mind, I really need to get this done, and Xian's a slave driver."

Megan practically buried herself in her Algerbra textbook and all Laura could do was go back to her book.

The next day Laura was in her AP History class. Today she found she had a difficult time concentrating. She kept staring out the window looking at the outdoors, like that was where she should be. Right now, since her mutation had activated, Laura had begun to feel more and more like a wild animal that had suddenly been put in a cage. Laura had lunch right after History so she decided she'd go into the woods then, of course that meant she had to gut her way through class.

"How hard could it be?" she thought to herself.

Right when lunch came, Laura carried out her plan. She walked into the surrounding woods and just took in her surroundings. Right when she stopped, she laid down on the ground. She was amazed at just how, right everything felt. Like all of a sudden she was in her own little world and nothing and no one could touch her here. Then she picked up a scent and sat up. She looked around her. She listened, for something, anything.

"Okay weird," she thought to herself, she could have sworn that scent she picked up felt, familiar somehow. Then Laura got this sinking feeling like she was being watched. Deciding she had been there long enough, Laura went back to the campus, not noticing a pair of cold gray eyes watching her.

Making her way through the hallways, constantly looking over her shoulder to see if anyone was following her. But because she wasn't watching for what was in front of her, she ended up running into another student, right when she did she got immediately pushed back.

"Hey watch it," the other student said with something sounding like panic in his voice.

He was a boy about Laura's age, with medium length brown hair. He was clothed from head to toe in black, complete with a trenchcoat and gloves.

"Hey I'm sorry," Laura said defensively.

"Oh," the boy said, "Look, it's not nothing personal, I just have problems with touching people."

"Meaning?" Laura asked. "Meaning when I touch people they die," he said.

"Are you related to Rogue or something?" she asked. "Rogue, no," he said, "I don't get anything from touching anyone, they just turn to dust." They both just stood there. "Uh I got a class so," the boy said and he walked off.

"Right class, uh yeah." Laura said letting him pass her by. "Nice going Laura," she said to herself, "You just made yourself look really stupid in front of a boy you just met, and you didn't even get his name."

When class was done for the day, Laura went back to her room. Megan was already there working on a new art project.

"So Kevin told me you ran into him earlier." she said.

"Kevin, dressed in black, touches people and they die?" Laura asked.

"Yup," Megan said, "I got a couple art classes with him."

"Oh," Laura said, "Is he good?"

"He's got that talent thing," Megan said, "But he tends to stick with stuff like clay or metal. Stuff that doesn't disintegrate when he touches it." Then Megan realized where Laura's train of thought was going. "Are you into him?" she asked.

"What, no," Laura smiling sheepishly, "I barely know him." Then she paused to think for a moment. "Well I guess he's sort of interesting, you know with that whole tortured brooding artist thing he's got going."

Megan snickered and Laura hit her on the back of a head with a pillow.

"Stop that!" Laura demanded.

"You wanna hold him, you wanna kiss him," Megan teased.

"We're not twelve anymore Megan, cut it out," Laura yelled half serious half joining in the fun.

"Oh I'm so gonna start running through campus, telling everyone that my cousin's got a crush on Kevin Ford, the boy with a death touch." Megan said devilishly gleeful and then she made her way to the door.

"Megan don't you dare," Laura.

"Oh I'm gonna do it," Megan said. And right when she opened the door, there was Sarah. "Hey Aunt Sarah," Megan said.

Sarah looked at the two teenagers. Seeing how well they got along with how they played and teased one another, reminded her of what she had almost given up with Debbie before she died.

"It's almost time to eat girls, you can finish whatever it is you were doing in here later." Sarah said.

"Yes mom," Laura said. Sarah closed the door and walked off, smiling. Back in their room Laura and Megan looked at each other.

"Out by sixteen," said Megan.

"Or dead on the scene," said Laura.

"But together forever. United against life as we know it." they recited together.

_A/N: If you haven't seen "Ginger Snaps" you should if you're into werewolves. One of the best werewolf movies out there._


	5. Bloodlines: Part 3

**Chapter 5**

**(Bloodlines: Pt 3)  
**

"Alright time to put you on a squad kid," Logan said.

Laura just sat in a chair in his office waiting for which squad she would placed on. "

Please oh please oh please don't let it be the Hellions," she thought to herself.

"So after the other teachers and I talked it out, we decided to stick you on Pride of the X-Men." Logan said.

"I got Kitty for my adviser?" Laura said.

"She knows you so we thought it would work best. Now don't go expecting any favors just cause the two of you got history okay." Logan said.

"Yes sir," Laura said in a mock salute fashion.

"Alright get your hide to the Danger Room," just as Laura walked off, "And try to have fun, but not too much." he said.

"Yeah dad," she said back as she walked through the door.

Laura made her way to the Danger Room. Having grown up in this place she knew basically where to find most any room in the whole campus. She used to watch her dad train the New Mutants when she was small from the observation deck. The Danger Room was her playground with Kitty and any of the New Mutants that joined in. Of course she never got play around in the same programs they did. She had gotten programs that either one or both her parents had preapproved. Now she would get to do what Kitty got to do back when she was little and Kitty was her babysitter.

"Hey guys, sorry I'm late," she said.

"Hey Laura," Kitty said back, "And you're really just a few minutes late. It's no big deal."

"Oh", Laura said sheepishly.

"Well everyone this is Laura Kinney," Kitty said introducing her, "Yes her dad is Wolverine, yes both her parents are faculty here, no that does not mean she gets cut any slack. She works just as hard as any of you. I want you to make her feel like one of the team like you would anyone else here. So let's get started with introductions."

"Actually I do know everyone here," Laura said. She pointed at the group which consisted of Jubilee, a Japanese girl, a gold skinned boy, a pink skinned girl that looked she had stepped out of Dungeons & Dragons, and a red headed boy with wings similar to Angel's. "Jubilee and I are friends, Hisako and I have French class, I know Josh from Biology, and Clarice and Jay are in my World Lit class."

"Thought ya'll looked familiar," Jay said.

"Well that's gonna save us a ton of time," Kitty said. "Alright then let's get to work on what I like to call "Days of Future Past".

Kitty motioned to Forge in the observation deck to hit the switch. And with that the Danger Room turned into a dystopic hellhole complete with ruined buildings that had posters of mutants that had either been apprehended or killed. Then a towering Sentinel robot walked towards them. Everyone assumed defensive positions. Laura popped her claws. SNIKT. Hisako, being the team leader, spelled put everyone's jobs,

"Alright Jay, take Laura and keep that thing distracted, Josh you're on standby if anyone needs to be healed, I'll cover you, Clarice get Jubilee ported to that thing's weak spot so she can blow it sky high."

And with that Jay took Laura into the air and dropped her onto the Sentinel. Her claws couldn't really damage it but they were enough to distract it. The Sentinel tried to flatten Hisako with its massive hand but found it couldn't really damage her when she threw up her psionic armor. And while it was distracted Jubilee ported in behind it courtesy of Clarice. Jubilee flooded the Sentinel with fireworks and made it explode. Clarice ported Laura away from the exploding Sentinel, while Jay swooped in and got Jubilee out. With the Sentinel falling to the ground in flames the simulation dissipated.

"Good job," said Kitty, "You guys are really showing some great teamwork and coordination, Hisako, you made some good calls as leader. This session's done, you guys hit the showers and head to your next classes."

Just as Pride, made their way out of the Danger Room, they were greeted by the Hellions entering for their session.

"Oh god seriously, here?" Laura said to herself.

She thought Keller was gonna try to antagonize her again, but surprisingly he just walked past without saying anything. "Okay," she thought, "But whatever I won't complain." Then Laura noticed the boy she had bumped into the other day, Kevin was on the team. "Hey," she said to him.

"Oh uh hey," Kevin said back.

"Hey listen I didn't get a chance to learn your name the last time we met, but my cousin sort of told me anyway so I guess there wouldn't be much point to introductions," she said to him.

"Sort of would be pointless for me to ask I guess considering everyone kind of knows you anyway," Kevin said.

"Price of your dad being on the X-Men," Laura said.

"Kevin quit screwing around," yelled a red headed girl that looked like she was made of silver.

"Hey I gotta go," Kevin said.

"Yeah I know, hey Kevin would you like to hang out sometime," Laura asked.

"Maybe," he said, "I'll think about it." And with that Kevin went to join his team mates.

Sometime later Sarah woke up in the middle of the night. She noticed Logan wasn't next to her in bed.

"Logan?" she asked.

She looked around, he wasn't in their bedroom anywhere. Sarah got out of bed and went looking for him. Sarah wandered through the campus. She found him in the school courtyard outside.

"Logan," she said to him, "What are you doing out here, are you alright?"

"I remember," he said, "I remember everything Sarah." He turned his gaze to her, "Things are about to get a lot worse now."

Sarah took his hand, "You don't know that," she said to him tenderly.

"No they are," Logan said grimly, "I can feel it. There's a whole lot of devils in my past."

Sarah took him in her arms, "Whatever happens we'll get through it, together."

A couple days later, Laura, Megan, and Jubilee were at a shopping mall at Jubilee's insistence. While her cousin and friend were off trying on clothes Laura picked up a scent. This was the one she had smelled awhile ago in the woods, the one that felt familiar to her. Then for some reason she felt compelled to follow it. She came to a parking lot, she observed her surroundings. Kept sniffing around, before coming across someone. A man in his 20's of Japanese descent with a mohawk and cold gray eyes.

Laura could tell this guy was where the scent had been coming from, "But I've never seen him before, why do I feel like I should know him?" she thought to herself. Then Laura began to feel anxiety creep over her, like something bad was going to happen.

"You look tense," the man said, "You should really relax."

Just as he said that Laura felt a calm wash over her, she didn't know why but she couldn't fight it. Then the man pulled from out of his pocket a rag and put it to her face. Laura began to feel lightheaded, then her vision got blurry, and she began to feel really relaxed and felt like sleeping.

When Laura came to, she was tied to a chair. Everything was dark save for the one light over her head that did little to illuminate the room she was in.

"Look I don't know who you think you are, but this is your last chance to let me go. My dad will notice I'm missing, he'll come looking for me, and when he finds you he'll mess you up big time. Course that's assuming I don't do it first." she said.

"You're sure confident in your abilities," the man said, "So am I. Must be a family thing."

"Family thing, what are you talking about," Laura asked.

Just like that two claws unsheathed themselves from the man's hand. Laura's eyes went wide at what she saw.

"I take it you figured it out," he said.

He stabbed Laura in the stomach. She grunted in pain. He held her head and leaned in close to speak.

"Look at you," he said, "A pet, that's what you are. You've lived in blissful ignorance of the kind of man Logan really is. You don't even know how many lives he's helped destroy do you? I can't believe my little sister turned out so weak."

He threw Laura and the chair to the ground, and kicked her in the face. He then picked her up by her shirt.

"What nothing to say?" he asked. Laura spit blood in his face.

"Untie me and I'll show you," Laura said.

"Why not, it'll be more fun," he said and with that he undid Laura's restraints.

Laura unsheathed her claws and assumed a combat stance. The man did the same.

"What's your name?" Laura asked him.

"Just call me Daken," he replied.

The two charged at each other. Laura knew she was at a disadvantage given her size and strength level, but she could at least try to outmaneuver him using her agility. But Daken was stronger and clearly more experienced than her, but Laura was no slouch at fighting. After making a scratch at Daken's side she managed a tuck and roll. Using this opportunity she went for a stab at his back with all six of her claws. Managing to sink them in she backflipped. Daken knelt to the floor giving Laura an opportunity to escape. Daken had realized he had underestimated the girl. She was not as helpless as he first thought.

Getting out to the open Laura found herself in the New York harbor. Laura kept running to get as much distance as she could between her and Daken. "Need to find someway out of here," she thought.

Then CRASH! A giant man in a rhinoceros suit got thrown into a wall.

"Geez Rhino don't you ever get tired of losing?" a voice asked. It belonged to another man in red and blue tights with a web pattern on it and a spider logo. Laura recognized him as Spider-Man. Spider-Man noticed her, "Oh I'm sorry miss, usually when I do that to the Rhino there isn't a bystander. Uh could please not tell anyone from the Bugle or really anyone from the press for that matter, but the Bugle especially, that that's not what just happened."

Laura grabbed him by his arms, "Can you get me out of here?" she yelled.

"Huh?"

"Look I don't have a lot of time to explain, my dad's Wolverine, I just found out I have an older brother, and he tried to kill me!" she said quickly.

"Your dad... is Wolverine?" Spider-Man asked.

SNIKT and Laura unsheathed a set of her hand claws.

"Oh," he said amazed. Spider-man turned his back to Laura, "You're gonna wanna hold on tight for this and can you keep your claws in please?"

"I promise I won't poke you with them." Laura said.

"They always say that," Spider-Man said and with that he took off with Laura. "So what's your name?" he asked.

"Laura," Laura responded.

"Your dad owes me money Laura," Spider-Man said.

They swung through the city till they came to Central Park where Spider-Man let her down.

"So how was your first time flying Air Spider?" asked Spider-Man.

"That was pretty cool actually, like a roller coaster but better," Laura said. Laura felt around her pockets, "Aw crap I don't have my phone, do you have one I can use for a sec?" she asked.

Spider-Man tossed her a cell phone and Laura called her father. When she was done Laura returned the phone to Spider-Man.

"Thanks my dad should be here in a couple hours," Laura said.

"A couple hours huh, well in that case," Spider-Man sat down next to Laura on the park bench.

"Aren't there bad guys and psychos you gotta go fight?" Laura asked.

"Well with Rhino I'd say I've filled my daily bad guy beatdown quota." Spider-Man replied.

"I'm a fourteen year old girl with claws and a healing factor, I can take care of myself," Laura said.

"Well now I can't leave a fourteen year old girl with claws and a healing factor alone in Central Park." Spider-Man said.

"Fine," Laura said.

A couple hours went by and Logan showed up with Sarah and Megan.

"Dad," Laura said as she ran to her father and hugged him as she began to cry into his stomach.

"Hey it's okay pumpkin, you're safe now," he said softly. "Thanks for looking after my daughter web head."

"Hey no problem," Spider-Man replied, "By the way uh you guys might have a bad seed in your family."

"Yeah I know," Logan said as he looked down at Laura. "Come on let's go home."

They went back to their home at the institute. Logan sat down with his family to tell them about who he was and what this Daken that had kidnapped Laura had to do with it all. He told them that he had been born James Howlett in the late 1800's. Sometime in the 30's he was in Japan training. While there he had gotten married to a woman named Itsu and they were expecting a child. But Itsu was murdered and Logan assumed their son had died with her as she was still pregnant when she died. Daken had been raised to hate Logan and now he would do whatever it took to ruin his life.

"Daken said something about how we don't know what you really are," Laura said, "What did he mean dad?"

Logan sighed. "I've done things, horrible things that I'm not proud of." he said. "I've killed hundreds of people, tortured, ruined good men and turned them into monsters."

"Aunt Sarah said you were in the military right? You were just doing your job?" Megan asked.

"No Megan, the stuff I've done practically makes me a war criminal." Logan said. The girls were both taken aback by what they had heard. Logan put his arms around them, "Want you both to know, that none of that stuff you just heard changes how I feel about you girls. I love both of you and that's the truth."

"I know who raised me," Laura said, "I don't care about what you did, you're my dad and you've never done anything wrong by me."

"You and Aunt Sarah took care of me since my mom died," Megan said, "No way you're what this Daken guy says you are."

After the girls had left Logan looked at Sarah. "Thank you for sticking by me Sarah," he said.

"Whoever you were, the man you used to be, he's not the man I married. The Logan I know is a brawler, temperamental, but he's also a loving father, and a good husband," Sarah said as she began to kiss him, "I know who you are, we all do."

Elsewhere in a white tiled cell was a lone girl, that looked just like Laura save for one thing. This girl had never been shown any love. Behind her green eyes she seemed dead inside. Her door opened and in walked Sabretooth.

"Stand up runt," he said.

The girl did as she was told.

"Now what's this I hear about you messing up on your mission?" he asked.

She said nothing. Sabretooth viciously clawed her across the face and began to maul her while she was on the ground. Behind a one way mirror was Sutter along with his new second in command Adam Harkins.

"Seems you made the right call in selecting Sabretooth to be X-24's handler Martin." Harkins said, "I was worried his personal history with Weapon X would complicate things, but I've been wrong before."

"Creed knows the difference between Weapon X and a clone, unlike Zander." Sutter said.

"Oh poor Rice, his loss certainly was a great one for you I imagine." Harkins replied.

"I raised him like my own son, believe me no one feels his loss more than I do." Sutter said and then he pressed a button to activate a mic. "Creed that will be enough for the moment."

And with that Creed grinned and dropped X-24's mangled bloody body to the ground and left her cell. X-24 crawled her way to a corner of her cell and huddled her body together. A mix of tears and blood made their way onto the floor.

_A/N: You didn't think I had forgotten about the Facility now did you?_


	6. The Other X

_A/N: Love all the feedback you beautiful people have provided, and I'm honored that Nerdman3000, the author of "X:23: Changing Tides" is now among this fic's followers, as his fic inspired this one. I'm really feeling the inspiration with this.  
_

**Chapter 6**

**(The Other X)  
**

Logan sat in a lonely room at a table across from SHIELD director Nick Fury.

"Alright Nick what is it you want?" he asked.

Fury handed him a file full of photos, all of them detailing the deaths of various people.

"Over the past few years there have been a string of assassinations. All of them high profile targets and no group claiming responsibility for the killings. So it leads me to assume that these assassinations were done for profit." Fury explained.

"So why tell me?", Logan asked.

"At one of the scenes we found trace amounts of adamantium," Fury said.

"You're not saying it was me are ya Nick?" Logan said.

"You don't take a breath without me knowing Logan, so yes I do know you aren't responsible for this." Fury said, "Besides we found claw marks at one scene. There were only two claws used and they were much too close to each other to be you. That indicates a smaller set of hands were used."

Logan's eyes went in different directions as he tried to figure out what Fury was saying. Smaller set of hands with two claws, but that would mean Laura, but Laura's claws were still made of bone not adamantium.

"You might want to speak with your wife Logan," Fury suggested, "You should show her those as well."

Back at the institute Logan showed Sarah the photos. He told her what Fury told him. Sarah was horrified. Even though they had gotten Laura out of the Facility and saved her from that awful life they had still managed to do the same thing to another girl.

"Oh god how could I have been so short sighted. I should have known they would have backups of all my data and samples of Laura." she said burying her head in her hands. Logan put his hand on her back to comfort her. She looked up at him with tears, "Logan, Laura cannot know about this."

"I thought we both agreed that we would tell her someday, when she was ready." Logan said.

"I know, but that was years ago when she was a baby. Look at her now, she's happy, does she really need to know?" Sarah asked.

"Sooner or later, this is going to spill into our lives. We can't keep the truth from her for long." Logan said.

Sarah ran her hands through her hair, realizing Logan was right. In fairness they had never hidden anything from Laura, they just never told her or brought it up. But that didn't make it better.

Back in X-24's cell she was given an envelope, it was her next target, a Triad boss in Hong Kong. She memorized all the documents and put on a black stealth uniform. Sabretooth opened her cell door when she was done and took her out to the chopper. Right when they arrived at the luxury hotel where her target was, Sabretooth set a wrist timer for 22 minutes. The target was located in a room on the 17th floor, so she scaled down the side of the building with her claws. She eventually came to the window of his room. She pulled out a silenced pistol aimed the laser sight at his head and shot through the window as he slept. X-24 then entered the room to confirm her target's death. She removed the covers to find a drugged prostitute serving as a dupe. Then she sniffed and found the Triad with several armed men pointing guns at her.

"I didn't think those assholes would send a little girl to kill me." he said.

X-24 unsheathed her claws, sharpened and coated in adamantium like Wolverine. With that she attacked the Triad's men. She moved with a graceful fluidity, like death was a dance and she was just performing the steps. When she was done, the Triad's men all laid bleeding on the floor dead. Now he was alone, at the mercy of a child who knew no such thing. She cocked her gun and shot him in the head. With her target eliminated she climbed back up the way she came and approached Sabretooth. She had beaten her time limit with only 6 minutes and 45 seconds left. Sabretooth just took the timer. He was under orders to only punish X-24 for failure and not reward her for success. X-24 was being conditioned to associate failure with pain. If she succeeded in a mission it meant that she would not beaten. It was all to make her the perfect weapon. Sabretooth had his hand in making this weapon, and when he looked at X-24 he saw something he could use against Wolverine. The chopper took off and went back to the Facility branch.

Back in Westchester Laura was with Kevin at the Grindstone, a coffee shop not too far from the institute that was frequented by mutants. Kevin had insisted that they pick a spot out of the way so he could avoid touching people. Getting him to agree on this had been challenging enough since Kevin didn't like being around people. It was also difficult to get him to talk about himself since he was so withdrawn, which was understandable. Laura did the smart thing and avoided questions that were too personal, mostly sticking to why he liked clay and industrial art.

"Yeah I can mold clay fine, but industrial art's what I'm passionate about."

"I don't get it, there's no definite shape a lot of the time," Laura said.

"Well that's cause there isn't supposed to be. It's supposed to be abstract, get to you more on a emotional level. It's more about what you feel, rather than see." Kevin explained.

"I've read some books and poems like that." Laura said.

"Yeah Megan said you're kind of a bookworm," Kevin said half jokingly.

"It's cause my mom wouldn't let me watch a lot of TV growing up, said it would rot my brain," Laura replied forcing a smile to look funny, "Upside is it made me smart."

"I heard you were actually excited when your powers finally kicked in, not too many mutants think like that," Kevin remarked.

"My mom had been telling me I was a mutant since I was a baby, guess I was just used to the idea of having claws. That and I thought it was cool that my dad was a superhero. When I saw how people admired him, I pretty much knew I wanted to be an X-Man like him." Laura said.

"I was pretty much terrified when mine kicked in, one day I wake up and my clothes are dissolving right off of me and I'm freaking out, and then," Kevin stopped himself.

Laura was curious but she also knew better. She put her hand on his gloved one, "It's okay you don't have to tell me," Laura said.

Kevin was taken aback by the act, he had half expected her to press him for information, but instead she was doing the opposite. Considering Kevin's touch caused people to disintegrate he never really tried to form bonds unless he needed to, so that people wouldn't get hurt by him and he wouldn't get hurt back. He had heard a lot of the gossip surrounding Laura Kinney, how she was the pampered daughter of Wolverine. How pretty much everything had been handed to her. How she had this stuck up self-entitled attitude that she could do whatever she wanted. How she thought she was better than everyone else. Kevin didn't know her before today so he had wrote the gossip off as just that, and didn't really care one way or the other. Not too many of the kids at Xavier's were really willing to be friends with Laura because of the unique status she had. Some of his teammates like Santo and Cessily had warned him about getting involved with her. Santo, having a head literally made of rock, had clued him into some of the more unsavory rumors about Laura, which Kevin said he was a complete dumbass for believing, then again this was Santo, and he would believe anything. But he knew Megan, and Megan had a lot of the same stigma attached to her being Laura's cousin and Wolverine's niece, so he figured if if all that gossip about Megan wasn't true then it had to be the same for Laura. And if Laura was anything like her cousin then she had to be at least worth talking to.

When the two went back to the Institute, Kevin worked up the nerve to ask her, "Hey if you're not busy next Friday would you be interested in doing something?"

Laura chuckled, "Is that your way of asking me out?" she asked.

"Not one of my better ones yeah," Kevin said trying to recover from his botched pick up line. He tried laughing with Laura to save face with her.

"Megan's gonna be in an art gallery next Friday, I'd really like it if you came." Laura said.

"Is this gonna be how I meet your parents?" Kevin asked.

"Kind of," Laura said, "Okay pretty much."

"Is it gonna be one of those things where I gotta wear a suit and tie thing?" he asked.

Laura nodded yes.

"Kind of don't have one," Kevin admitted.

"My dad can set you up." Laura said.

"There'll be people," he said.

"I'll be with you the whole time," she replied.

Kevin thought for a second.

"Alright I'll go," he conceded. "

Thanks," Laura said and with that she walked off to her room, "I'll see you next Friday Kevin."

"Same here," Kevin replied.

Elsewhere at the Facility, Sutter, Harkins, and several other high ranking Facility members were discussing the success of X-24's recent mission in Hong Kong.

"X-24 has proven every bit the success we hoped for," Sutter said, "She has eliminated every target we marked, beaten every time limit we set. She is without a doubt perfect, with no small thanks to Sabretooth her handler. Gentlemen I believe we are ready to take this project to its next step."

"Are we talking about cloning X-24 and selling them off?" one of the Facility heads asked.

"You would be right," Harkins said. "With more clones we can potentially create record breaking profits."

The Facility members were impressed by this idea.

After the meeting had been adjourned, Sutter noticed that Harkins seemed excited.

"You must be anxious to get to work on this phase Adam." he said.

"Anxious is hardly the word I would use Martin. I'm giddy with excitement at creating more of X-24 practically off an assembly line." Harkins replied.

"That's good as I have business that must be attended to elsewhere. I trust you can handle this yourself?" Sutter asked.

"When have I ever given you reason to doubt me Martin?" Harkins replied.

After Sutter had left Harkins made his way to his lab and found Creed in his seat, his legs crossed on his desk, going through his files.

"This would seem a little above your pay grade Creed." he said.

"Making more of these things, I just wanna say I'm impressed is all Harkins." Creed said. "If the boys at Weapon X had had half your guys' vision, world would be a very different place."

"You would be right about that," Harkins admitted.

Creed got off of Harkins' desk and walked, "Well I got things to do now if you don't mind," Creed said.

With that Harkins began working on making clones of X-24.

A few hours later, alarms went off.

"What the hell," Harkins said. One of the guards came to him.

"Dr. Harkins we need to evacuate," he said.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"It's X-24, she got out of her cell and now she's killing everyone she comes across." the guard explained, "We're hearing reports that's she acting as though she were exposed to the trigger scent."

"But how is that possible, everyone she comes across?" Harkins asked. For that to be possible one would have had to introduce the trigger scent into, "The air ducts." Harkins said as he looked up at one of the vents. "Someone put it into the scrubbers and now it's being circulated through the whole building."

"Emergency Lockdown. Emergency Lockdown." said a prerecorded voice over the speakers.

And with that the doors to their escape were locked.

"Get blow torches over here," the guard captain instructed.

Then something dawned on Harkins, "Where is Sabretooth?" And just when he said that his phone rang.

"Hey Harkins you feel like a rat that's been trapped?" Creed said over the phone.

"You son of a bitch!"Harkins yelled.

"Hey now my mother was a saint," Creed said from a safe location outside the facility. "Well not like it matters cause sooner or later X is gonna find you and you're gonna be coming down with a bad case of death."

And with that he hung up. While Harkins and his guards tried to escape, they were found by X-24. Her eyes were red making her look like a demon from Hell come to slaughter them. She roared and eviscerated them all. Soon enough Creed saw X-24 clawing her way out of the Facility. She fell to the ground exhausted. When she saw Creed she awaited her punishment for what failure it was this time. Instead Creed hiked her up by the back of her uniform top and smiled at her.

"Good girl," he said.

"I do not understand," she said.

"You did exactly what I wanted. You see X I've taken something of a shine to you. I really think I can make better use of you than those jokers ever could." Creed replied.

"Then I am to now take orders from you?" she asked.

"Smart girl," Creed said, "That's exactly how things are gonna work now. From now on consider yourself my attack dog. I tell you to kill you do it. We clear?"

X-24 nodded her head in acknowledgment.

"Good now let's get going, we got places to go and lives to ruin." And with that Sabretooth walked off with X-24 following behind him.

_A/N: As the great __philosopher Aristotle said, "Shit just got real_ _yo!"  
_


	7. Love Maybe?

**Chapter 7**

**(Love Maybe?)  
**

Friday the week of Megan's gallery exhibit. A committee looking to promote talented student artists had selected some of Megan's paintings and screen printings in their show this year. While Xavier's had quite a few talented artists in its student body, the mutant factor had made them weary of selecting, but as Megan was human she had sort of been able to act as "a bridge" of sorts. The way Charles saw it this was an opportunity to convince the New York artistic elite that Xavier's had a wealth of talent just waiting to mined. In their room Sarah was getting the girls into dresses for the occasion. Laura was a touch apprehensive about hers.

"God I hate this, I can barely move in it." she said.

"Funny, I actually remember a time when you liked wearing a dress," Sarah said as she adjusted the straps on her daughter's evergreen dress.

"Yeah when I was eight mom." Laura said back.

"At least you got a date," Megan said, "I gotta stand there for three hours, smile and shake hands with people pretending to be interested in my stuff. All while wearing this."

Megan ran her hand across her dress, a red one, to show how uncomfortable the dress was. Sarah turned her daughter and niece around to get a good look at them.

"You both look great." She motioned for Megan to leave and sat Laura down in front of the girl's vanity mirror. "Now let's get your hair done."

"Do I really need to do this mom?" Laura asked.

"Well don't you want to look nice for Kevin?" Sarah responded. Laura blushed at her mother's statement.

"Your silence is a yes then," Sarah said.

Out in the foyer Megan was waiting with Kevin and Logan. Kevin wasn't looking too comfortable with the suit Logan had set him up with. He kept tugging at the tie like he was choking. Logan took notice, he knew the boy's pain all too well.

"Yeah kid been there done that, " he said, "The woman's made me wear this getup quite a few times."

"Can't believe people actually wear these things," Kevin replied. Then something dawned on him. "All this time you haven't given me that big scary detailed speech about what happens if I mistreat Laura."

"Do you want a big scary detailed speech about what happens if you mistreat Laura?" Logan asked.

"Not really," Kevin said.

"Then I won't give ya one," Logan replied, " 'sides, think yer smart enough to know what'll happen if you do."

Then Xavier along with Scott and Ororo arrived in the foyer, dressed for the occasion.

"If I may, I believe your presence here would be quite the asset Mr. Ford." Xavier said.

Kevin was a bit perplexed by his statement. "But Megan's the one in the show," he said. "

Yes but you are as gifted as an artist as Miss Kinney. Megan is Xavier's stepping stone. If this gallery goes well, then there is no doubt in my mind that New York Student Artist Committee will be interested in our other young creators. And if one such happened to be there."

Xavier elaborated. "Wow no pressure then," Kevin said.

Logan patted him on the back. "Just relax and have a good time with your date kid." he said.

Just then Sarah arrived with Laura. She had her hair styled to have the back tied up to look like a bird's tail with two strands going down in the front. Her eyes met Kevin's, there was silence between them for a bit, before Kevin mustered the courage to say something.

"You... look great." he said.

"Thanks," Laura said.

"Really like your hair," Kevin said.

"My mom did it," Laura replied.

"Yeah it looks really good." he said.

"Alright ramblers let's ramblin'," Logan said and with that everyone piled into the limo.

Needless to say the art gallery went swimmingly like Charles expected it to. Many of the patrons were impressed by Megan's ability and expressed a desire to view work from some of Xavier's other students. Kevin had gotten a couple offers himself. He has stuck by Laura for most of the exhibit. She made him feel safe. That was something he hadn't felt in a long time, not even with the Hellions. He appreciated that. He was out on a balcony alone right now, thinking to himself. Thinking about how much of a nice girl Laura was, wondering where all that stuff about her being a stuck up faculty kid came from. Wondering how many people had actually taken the time to get to know her. Then Laura joined him.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Yeah I'm good, just thinking." Kevin replied. He turned his head to Laura. "Hey back at the Grindstone when I was talking about when I first got my powers."

"Yeah you cut yourself off,"Laura said, "It seemed like there was a lot of pain attached to it. So I didn't ask you about it."

"Yeah thanks," Kevin said.

"You're welcome," Laura said back. "But right now I think I can tell you about why that part of my life is so painful," Kevin began.

"Are you sure you wanna tell me Kevin?" Laura asked.

"Yeah," he said, "After my powers activated I started freaking out. My dad then came in and." Kevin paused.

Laura put her hand on his. "If it's that uncomfortable for you," she began to say but Kevin cut her off.

"No, I want to tell you. You have the right to know." he said, "My dad tried to calm me down but he touched me and he... he died, because of me."

Kevin was choking back tears from that. Laura took him in her arms.

"I'm so sorry that happened to you Kevin," she said.

"It's why I've never really talked to anyone or really tried making friends. I don't wanna hurt anyone else." he said back.

Laura slowly tried to remove one of his gloves but Kevin pulled it back immediately.

"Please don't," he said.

"Kevin I'll heal from it," she said.

"You don't know that." he said.

"I just want you to know that the death touch doesn't scare me, because I know you would never do anything to hurt me." she said.

Kevin was beside himself, right now he so desperately wanted to kiss this girl, but he didn't want to drain the life from that beautiful face. Kevin felt like an oxymoron, he was gifted as an artist. Able to create beautiful metal sculptures. But his mutant ability made him a destroyer. All it would take is one touch and he could kill someone. Laura just hugged him, and Kevin felt himself giving in by hugging her back. Yeah this was good, this would do for now.

_A/N: Now now don't fret the real conflict's still coming. Storm's coming and X and Wither are gonna be right smack in the middle_


	8. X-24: Part 1

**Chapter 8**

**(X-24 Pt 1)  
**

Flash forward to a little before Laura's sixteenth birthday. She and Kevin had officially been a couple for a little over a year now. Kevin had been pushing himself to get control over his powers so that he could actually make contact with Laura. So far he could manage it for at least five minutes at a time, which meant not much in the way of making out, but hey they could finally kiss each other so they weren't complaining. They also found out that Laura could heal from Kevin's touch but he drained faster than she could heal. Logan liked that Kevin couldn't touch Laura for long for obvious reasons, but he encouraged the boy to work on controlling his death touch, though he kept hoping it wouldn't be too soon. While Laura and Kevin were growing closer though, it seemed that Laura and Megan were starting to grow apart. Nowadays there seemed to be distance between the the cousin pair. Megan was now keeping to herself more, when in the past she and Laura shared everything with each other. They had an argument here and there for whatever reason neither could remember now. Things were beginning to change for both good and bad.

Laura walked into her mother's office while she was working on her curriculum for the Fall term.

"Mom," she said.

"I'm busy right now Laura can it wait?" Sarah asked.

"Kind of important," Laura said back.

Sarah looked up and turned her bespectacled gaze to the soon to be sixteen year old girl.

"I haven't forgotten your birthday," she said.

"That's not it," Laura said.

Sarah pinched her forehead as she knew where Laura was going with this line of thought.

"Really again," she asked ironically, "Laura I've been telling you this every year since you were ten. You are not getting a motorcycle for your birthday. You can settle for a car like every other sixteen year old girl."

"Oh come on mom," Laura protested, "You never had a problem when dad let me ride with him on his."

"And I wonder to God how that man convinced me to let it happen," Sarah said.

Then she realized that if she made the exception to let Laura ride on Logan's, maybe she could be trusted with her own. She sighed and raised her finger to Laura.

"I'll talk with your father about maybe getting you one. But this is not a yes by any means young lady," she said firmly.

Laura just grinned with excitement, "It's not a no either."

And with that she darted out the door. As soon as she had left Sarah then felt dread well up in her stomach.

"Oh lord what have I done?" she asked herself.

Laura went to the Danger Room to check on her father. Logan had been in a bit of a funk over how things had turned out with his son, Daken. Despite his best efforts to reunite and reconcile with him, it was pretty clear that Daken outright despised Logan and everything he stood for. It was all taking its toll on him emotionally. If not for the support he got from his wife, daughter, and niece, Logan may have cracked under the pressure already. Laura had spoken with Daken a few times. She couldn't understand why he felt this way. Logan never knew what happened, how could Daken blame him for any of what happened to him? What's more he hated Laura because Logan was the father to her he never was to him. Daken had been shown no love and couldn't love anyone but himself. He had been taught that he had to care about only himself because no one else would. Laura had tried to reach out to him only to be rejected. She had a brother and he wanted her dead. But what she felt was nothing compared to what Logan felt.

She came across Logan working out a sparring match between him and Colossus. Colossus landed the final blow and knocked Logan on the floor. Right then he noticed Laura there watching.

"I'm calling it tin man," Logan said to Colossus.

"Alright then," Colossus said as he helped Logan back to his feet, "Once again a good match comrade."

And Colossus left the Danger Room. Logan picked up a towel and wiped the sweat from his face.

"So what did your mother say?" Logan said.

Laura had already asked him about the motorcycle.

"Mom said she would talk with you about it." she said back, "Hey dad are you okay right now?"

"Laura I told you this already," Logan said, "Daken's not your responsibility, he's mine. You've got nuthin' to be worried about."

Laura looked at her feet, feeling helpless, but Logan was right, this was his battle to fight. He pushed her chin up.

"Hey don't be all down now. Your birthday's coming up. Be happy." he said trying to perk her spirits up.

Laura cracked a faint smile and said, "Okay dad."

Meanwhile in the art room Kevin was working on the finishing touches for a sculpture he was going to give Laura for her birthday when Megan came in.

Kevin noticed, "Hey Megan."

"Hey yourself," she said back.

She took a look at Laura's sculpture. "Looks nice," she said.

"Well I spent a week on this thing, it better look good." Kevin retorted.

He stopped for a bit, turned off the welding torch, took off his welding goggles, and looked at Megan.

"You got something for Laura yet?" he asked.

"Just a My Chemical Romance CD," she responded.

"Thought you usually make Laura something for her birthday?" Kevin asked.

"Yeah but this year I don't know, wasn't exactly feeling inspired. Besides she doesn't need me to make her anything when she's got you." Megan said looking at the sculpture.

Kevin could notice a certain look in Megan's eye. One that he was too familiar with, cause he had seen it before when he looked in the mirror, loneliness.

"Hey," he said and Megan turned her head to look him the eye, "Laura loves you. She'll be grateful that you thought about her."

"Yeah, sure," Megan said somewhat somberly.

She walked away with her hands in her jacket pockets. Kevin just watched her walk away.

Later that day Logan was sitting by himself at a bar. He was waiting for someone.

"Hey dad," a voice said.

Logan turned around and there was Daken. Daken sat down next to his father and ordered a drink.

"Never expected you to actually want to see me." Logan said.

"This is more like a business transaction," Daken responded. He downed his drink, then handed Logan a box with a bow on it. "You don't have to tell her it's from me," he said and he started to walk away.

"You tried to kill your own sister the first time you met. Why the sudden turnaround?" Logan asked.

"Who said anything about a turnaround? I still want her dead. But it'll be you first old man." Daken said. "This is my way of saying no one kills Laura but me."

Daken walked out the door and Logan looked at the gift, and thought that maybe there was some hope for Daken after all. Maybe he could be saved.

"Nah," he said to himself, "I'm never that lucky." And he went back to his drinking.

Finally came the day of Laura's birthday, August 2nd. They had kept it small like they usually did, with just her family and her boyfriend, since she and Kevin had started dating. Laura had adored the sculpture Kevin had made for her, and loved the CD Megan had bought her. As for the gift from Daken, it was a little chain with a Japanese kanji inscribed on it. It was the kanji for "little sister". Laura could speak Japanese, courtesy of her father, but Logan had never taught her to read kanji, so he could lie by saying it was from him. Laura thought it was beautiful, but not as beautiful as Kevin's sculpture.

"Alright you still got one more present sweetie," Sarah said.

"Okay so where is it?" Laura asked. Sarah just gave her a telling look. "Oh my god Mom you really did?" she asked.

They went into the garage and turned on the light and in there stood a black motorcycle with a red bow stuck to it. Not a cruiser like Logan's but a dual-sport type. It came with a helmet and padded jacket. Laura was beside herself in amazement that she had actually gotten it.

"After we talked about for a bit, your father and I decided you could be trusted with one, but it's your responsibility to take care of it." Sarah said firmly on the last part.

Laura hugged her mother, "Thank you mom!" she said joyously.

"Wow no way we can top that," Kevin said jokingly to Megan.

"Oh you guys my birthday's not a competition," Laura said hugging her cousin and boyfriend, "I love what you guys gave."

"Liar," Megan said sarcastically.

"If I let you ride with me will it convince you?" Laura asked.

Megan pretended to think for a second, "Yeah."

A few weeks later Laura and Megan were at a movie theater that was showing some trashy horror flick the girls both got a kick out of. Laura had to use the bathroom so Megan went out ahead of her. Then she finally got joined by Laura.

"God what took ya," but Megan looked at Laura and noticed something was wrong.

This girl looked like Laura but she was different, and it wasn't just the fact that she was wearing different clothes and had those blonde streaks in her hair. Her expression, body language, all of it, they had the same face but this girl wasn't Laura.

"What the hell?" Megan said and she began to back up nervously before bumping into someone.

Megan turned around and looked, and there was a large man with long blonde hair and a beastly grin that scared her. Then Megan felt a blow to the back of her head and she was out like a light. Creed and X-24 were now in the process of kidnapping Megan hoping to really make Logan's life a living hell.

"Nice work Vesper," Creed said to the girl.

X-24 had now started using the name Vesper. As they began to walk away someone tried to land a kick to Vesper's face, Laura. She managed to land it and knocked Vesper down.

"Let Megan go creep or I'll kill you!" Laura demanded with her claws unsheathed.

"You're not any position to be making threats sweetheart," Creed said, "How ya feeling Vesper?"

Laura turned her head to see the girl she had knocked down back on her feet. Laura was stunned by how much this girl looked like her.

"Take her out of the fight but don't kill her, you'll get to do that soon enough," Creed said.

"Yes Victor," Vesper replied and with that she unsheathed her adamantium claws.

Laura was so completely blown by what she had just seen she didn't have time to react when Vesper sank her claws into her chest. Down on her back, bleeding and at Vesper's mercy, Laura was completely helpless. Not one to waste an opportunity Vesper bashed her head against Laura's viciously and as she did it Laura could swear she was smiling, like she had wanted to do this for a long time.

Wasn't long before her vision went black and when Laura came to, there were paramedics over her.

"Hey she's regaining consciousness," one of the medics said. Laura began to get up, "Hey miss you really shouldn't be moving," he said.

"It's okay I'm fine really I am. I can heal from worse." Laura said.

She began to walk to her bike. She had to get back home, tell her parents what happened, and find out why there was a girl out there that looked just like her. She made her way back to the institute and when she hadn't come back with Megan her parents wanted an explanation.

"Sabretooth took Megan."

Logan had trained Laura for his archenemy, in case she was ever unfortunate to meet him. Logan didn't say anything but he began to walk away looking ready to do some killing.

"There's more," Laura said, "He had help."

"From whom?" Logan asked bluntly.

"I don't know but the girl that was with him, she... she looked... just like me," Laura said in disbelief.

"Probably Mystique, she's a shapeshifter." Logan said.

"If it was a shapeshifter then why did she have blonde streaks in her hair, why did she have metal claws just like you?" Laura said to her father.

Sarah's eyes went wide in realization at what Laura was talking about, and Laura noticed.

"You both know about this girl don't you? What is she? Mom dad?" she asked.

Logan put his hands on his daughter's shoulder, "We need to focus on getting Megan back right now. We'll tell you when this is over," he said and turned to Sarah, "I'll round up some of the X-Men, we'll find Megan."

Laura stood up and looked her father dead in the eyes, "I'm going with you."

"You won't be doing any such thing," Sarah said firmly.

"Megan's in this mess because of me mom, she's my cousin, my family, my best friend. I have to go." Laura argued.

"Your mother's right Laura you're not going." Logan said.

Laura just grunted angrily and stormed off.

The Blackbird found its way to where Sabretooth had taken Megan. A lone factory in the woods. The X-Men were made of Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Psylocke, Gambit, and Rogue. After they had left the jet, Laura broke out of the locker she had stowed away in, she had used one of Gambit's trench coats to mask her scent. She tried to sneak behind them but then she caught the scent of brimstone and BAMF she was standing in front of the X-Men. Logan had caught her scent despite her best efforts and had Nightcrawler port her over. Laura knew she was in trouble for sure.

Logan just stared her down, frowned and said, "You are in so much trouble when we get back home."

But Laura stood her ground anyway, "Fine ground me till I'm 40, but Megan's in there and I'm gonna get her back."

"Geez of all the things she got from me, she had to get that stubborn streak to. This girl's skull might as well be made of adamantium." he thought to himself. "Rogue you're on babysitting duty, don't let her out of your sight," he said to the southern woman.

"Yeah sure," she replied.

"Job still hasn't changed, now let's get Megan." Logan said and with that the X-Men moved out.

They had gotten inside and split up. Rogue and Laura were in another corridor. Rogue kept Laura in front so she wouldn't lose her and cause she had the enhanced senses though Rogue had borrowed from her. She could tell the teenage girl was nervous as all hell.

"Gosh sugah, I've never seen anyone stand up to your daddy like y'all did there,"said Rogue.

"Yeah well I was scared as hell when I did that. I've never done that before." Laura admitted.

"Y'all should be proud of yoreself fer that, 'sides little rebellion here n there's a healthy thing for a teenage girl," Rogue said.

"Thanks Rogue," Laura said back.

"No problem sugah." Rogue said.

Then Laura and Rogue smelled the air and right from above them a pair of boots knocked Rogue in the face and on her back. It was Vesper, back for round two. She unsheathed her adamantium claws and went straight for Laura. Laura tried to use her claws to defend herself, but once again she was fighting an opponent that completely outclassed her. Vesper wasn't just a better fighter, she was also more vicious, and having adamantium laced claws only made her tougher. Just like her fight with Daken, Laura was fighting for her life but this time she couldn't hold out till she found an opportunity to run. Laura had to stand her ground and look for openings, but unfortunately Vesper wasn't giving her many for long.

"So this is it?" she thought to herself, "I die here, killed by a girl that looks just like me. Why? Why does she look like me, what does she have against me? Wait a sec."

Vesper clawed Laura across the face and Laura found herself on the floor crawling. Vesper grabbed her by the hair.

"Now I can finally get rid of you." she said.

"Why?" Laura asked, "What did I do to you?" Laura was counting on getting Vesper to talk to give her opening.

"Everything I am, it is all because of you. You have no idea what was done to me, what kind of hell I lived through. It should have been you, X-23." Vesper said.

"X-23, what?" Laura asked.

"Victor and I thought you wouldn't know." Vesper said "You and I are clones of Weapon X but you know him as the man you call your father."

Laura's eyes went wide at what she was hearing.

"Had he never interfered I never would have been created and you would have been the one to suffer what I did."

She raised her claws to stab Laura in the forehead but because she was holding Laura up to a wall, she left her stomach exposed, Laura had to act fast. Laura stabbed her in the stomach and using Vesper's surprise to her advantage stabbed her repeatedly in the chest before Rogue finally grabbed her arm.

"That's enough, it's over."

Vesper slid off Laura's claws seemingly dead. Laura was breathing heavily, she then turned over and threw up. She then began to cry and Rogue took her in her arms.

"Shh shh it's alright sugah, ah'm here, ah'm here. It's gonna be okay." Then Rogue heard Gambit over her X-Communicator.

"Hey cher, we found Megan. Wolverine tussled wit Sabretooth but he got away."

"Is Megan okay Remy?" Rogue asked.

"Few cuts n' bruises but she be a'ight," Gambit replied.

"That's good t' hear. Hey Remy tell Kurt he's gonna have t' port another body to the Blackbird and it's something Logan's gonna wanna see."

Rogue continued to look at the shocked girl in her arms and tried to comfort her as much as she could.

_A/N: So many questions, why is X-24 calling herself Vesper, how did she get so pissed at Laura, what will this revelation mean for Laura, what's going to happen between her and Megan?... Told you shit just got real. BTW I didn't choose August 2nd as Laura's birthday out of a hat, there's a reason I did, can you guess why? ;-)_


	9. X-24: Part 2

**Chapter 9**

**(X-24 Pt 2)  
**

In Logan and Sarah's bedroom, there sat Logan, Sarah, Laura, Megan, and Kevin. Laura wanted answers and her parents were going to give them to her. There was no point in keeping it secret anymore after what just happened.

"That girl looked just like me. She said we're clones of dad. Mom, dad, is she telling the truth?" Laura asked.

There was silence between everyone for a moment.

"To tell the whole story Laura, you need to understand, what does done to Logan." Sarah said.

"Back in the Cold War some butchers called Weapon X got their hands on me. Did this to me." Logan said and he unsheathed his claws, "They tried to erase my memories, make me into a weapon. But I got out, killed a lot of men to do it." Logan turned to Sarah.

"After he escaped, some men from an organization called the Facility recovered a sample of him. They wanted to recreate Weapon X, and they hired me to do it." Sarah's head hung low, "I told them I could do it by cloning Logan, but there was a problem. The genome was too damaged and I had to take a few shortcuts. One of them was that instead of rebuilding the Y chromosome, I duplicated the X chromosome."

Laura looked at her hands, and then thought about what she saw every time she looked at her face in the mirror. Was that really her face? Or just a shadow, a copy of Logan's?

"I also added some of my own DNA to complete your genetic code Laura, it isn't a lot, but part of me is in you." Sarah said as she held Laura's face in her hands. "But you weren't what they wanted, but they went with my way. But because I defied them, they punished me. They punished me by making me carry you in my body, and that's when everything changed for me."

Laura looked at her mother with disbelief, "I was just an experiment to you? You were going to make me into a weapon, a thing, like Dad was, like that girl was."

Tears flowed from Sarah's eyes. She took a deep breath and said, "Yes, I was. But after I became pregnant, I realized my mistake. Before you Laura, I never wanted a family, because of what my father did to me. I didn't even love myself. But after I felt you grow inside me, I changed. I knew I had to get you away before it was too late. So I went to the one person who could save you, your father." She looked at Logan. "I want you to know, we both love you, you are not a thing, you are our daughter, our child."

Sarah took Laura in her arms and held tightly. You could feel the guilt in it. This was a woman who had done something evil and was now spending every waking moment of her life trying to earn some sort of penance. Laura wasn't sure what to think. Her whole life she thought she was her parents' daughter, now she found she was something else. She didn't return her mother's hug, because of the storm of confusion and doubt in her mind.

"Why? Why didn't you ever tell me? Why did you lie to me?" she asked them both.

"Sweetheart, we never lied to you," Sarah said, "We just... never told you. We meant to. But as you got older, it just got harder."

Laura walked away, "Is that really supposed to make it better?"

She closed the door, Megan and Kevin followed behind. Sarah went to Logan. He took her in his arms to comfort her however he could.

"Logan, tell me. Tell me I'm a good mother. Tell me I didn't do anything wrong." she said sobbing her eyes out.

"She just needs time to digest this. She knows who raised her. It might take awhile, but things'll go back to normal. Sooner or later." Logan said.

Back in the hallway Laura was walking alone but Kevin managed to catch up to her.

Kevin looked at the distraught girl, "I have to admit, sure wasn't expecting to hear that from your parents." he said rubbing his neck.

"Are they even really my parents?" she asked rhetorically. "All of a sudden now I know why Mom kept reading me Pinocchio. Only difference is I and everyone else was convinced I was real." She looked down at her hands.

Kevin perked her chin up so she could look him in the eye. "You are real, to me. Always have been. Doesn't matter how you were born. You're Laura, the girl I love."

Kevin leaned into kiss her and Laura kissed him back. At the end of the hall, from behind a wall, Megan sat down, holding her legs up to herself, and she cried.

_A/N: Logan says thing will go back to normal but from the look of things that may not be the case_


	10. X-24: Part 3

**Chapter 10**

Down below in the Institute lab, Vesper lied chained to a bed. Laura had done a number on her, and right now she was in a coma, but it wouldn't be long before she would heal and regain consciousness. Right now all she could think about was X-23, and how she was going to kill her, and then find her way back to Victor. Maybe if she got lucky she could kill Wolverine to, Victor would be proud of that, right? All Victor ever talked about was how he wanted to send Wolverine straight to Hell. She thought back, back to when she clawed her way out of the Facility, covered in blood, tired, lying in the cold snow. And how Victor was still there, how he picked her up, and took her in.

She had to admit, when she first began following him, she was afraid of him. Sabretooth had been her handler in the Facility. He had beaten her, clawed her, nearly killed her on more than one occasion. Now he told her he was taking her away from the Facility, she was going to be taking orders from him now, she was going to be in his words, "his attack dog". As long as someone was there to give her orders, she didn't care. All she knew is that she was X-24, a weapon, nothing more. They started by hiding in one of Sabretooth's many safe houses. There was nothing there but the bare essentials that and a television.

"You stay here, I got some things that need doing. You get hungry, feed yourself. Get bored, entertain yourself." he said to her in that deep gravely voice that sounded like an animal's growl.

And like that he left. She decided she should look around and memorize all potential escape routes, should she need to. The safe house met all her expectations. Sabretooth has chosen this well, no he was experienced in this. It would make sense given the way he walked and acted. Espionage and assassination were things he was good at. She remembered being told that Sabretooth had been a Weapon X test subject. She eventually found her way to the bedroom. The bed there was fairly plain. Nothing special about any of the covers, they were just functional. Out of curiosity she touched it to see what it felt like. Then she decided to lay on it. It felt soft and comfortable. She had never laid in a bed before, she was never given one. The she began to feel hungry. There was nothing but canned food in the shelves, they would do. She looked at the labels on one, Wolf Brand Chili. She did not know what it was except that it was food. She used one of her claws to get the can open and ate the contents. This tasted nothing like the protein paste she hand been fed in the facility, this had flavor, taste. It tasted salty with a slight hint of spicy. When she had gone through the can, she found herself wanting more of it, and so she went through several more cans.

After several hours had gone by Sabretooth returned, with a blue skinned woman with red hair in a white outfit that showed off her generous curves.

"Wow Victor, I never imagined you to be the type to adopt. She's adorable." she smirked lustfully.

This woman reeked of murder and something else, sex.

"Alright X stand up," Sabretooth commanded.

X-24 did as she was told.

"This here's Raven or Mystique. When I ain't around you do what she says. We clear?"

She nodded yes.

"Good, cause I got some business, so she's gonna be watching you for a bit. Plus you got some things that are gonna need a woman's touch."

By the next day Sabretooth was gone and she was alone with Raven or Mystique. X did not know how to refer to this woman when she had two different names. It made no sense to her.

"So since Victor's not here, I guess now's as good a time as any to get acquainted with each other my dear." she said, "Let's start with you. What's your name?"

X-24 did not know how to answer that, she was never given a name, only a label.

"My designation is X-24." she replied in that monotone voice of hers.

The woman just smirked and stroked her hair.

"No that's what the pigs who made you wanted to call you. That's not a name. To them you were just a weapon. To Victor and me, you are so much more." X was taken aback by what she was being told. "I guess we'll just have to find you a name. I know. Vesper, yes that will suit you."

"Vesper," X asked.

"It means night, your hair's as dark as the night, and you clearly seem at home in the dark." she said.

"Vesper," X said to herself, "It will do, my name is Vesper."

"Good," the woman said, "And you can call me Raven."

"You are Raven," Vesper said.

"Good girl," Raven said and she patted her head.

Sabretooth or Victor as she was now calling him did not come back for six whole months. In that time Vesper learned a lot from Raven. How she was a mutant, how that made her superior to humans, and how she should cut them down to make way for homo superior. But there were also mutants that would get in their way. They were the X-Men, they believed the foolish notion that one day humans would accept them. Humans would never understand mutants, and humans always feared what they didn't understand. It didn't matter to Vesper, she had killed before but now she was killing because she had a reason to, not because she was told to. Taking a life was like taking a breath for her, but now she would kill for her own purposes. Vesper also learned how to use what Raven called ,"feminine wiles" to get what she wanted. When Vesper took her first boy to bed, Raven told her how proud she was of her and kissed her on the head.

"How did it feel?" she asked.

"I felt so alive." Vesper said back.

"It was like that for me as well, there's nothing like a good time in bed with a warm body next to you." Raven said.

Vesper wondered if the way Raven treated her, if this is what a mother was like. Raven also did a lot in teaching her how to dress. Vesper found she liked dark colors, but for some reason she liked ripping holes in her clothes and wearing fishnets under them.

"Whatever, girls will be girls," Raven thought to herself.

Then one day Vesper got the idea to dye her hair blonde. "Why would you want to do that to your beautiful hair?" Raven asked. The girl looked shyly looked away and that told her everything she needed to know. "Oh I see." And with that Raven dyed streaks of her hair blonde.

When Victor finally came back he was surprised by what he saw.

"Shoulda known those maternal instincts o yours woulda kicked in." he said.

"You know I've always had a weakness for children Victor Creed," Raven said as she planted a kiss on him.

"Well don't matter, still my dog Vesper. So you ready to go do some tricks?' he asked ironically.

Vesper smirked, "Only if I get treats Victor."

Victor laughed at the quip he had heard from the former emotionally numb weapon. She spent a year traveling with Victor. She was killing people like she did before for the Facility but this time she wanted to kill these people. She was good at killing and she enjoyed it. She loved the thrill of a challenging target and the rush she felt when her target's life ended, but she only felt that rush when she used her claws, got up close and personal. She used some firearms to execute a target when the situation called for it, but she liked using her claws to do it more. She could savor all the little emotions they felt when she killed them. Victor was pleased when she did her job right and rewarded her for it. Being rewarded, she liked this.

Vesper then learned about Wolverine, the man she had been cloned from. Victor's whole mission in life was to track him down and find some way to make his life hell. Wolverine was an animal just like her and Victor but he tried to deny it, kept trying to prove that he was a man. That pissed Victor off, how the runt kept lying to himself. Vesper didn't like him but she didn't hate him, not like Victor did. But X-23, that was the first person Vesper felt actual hatred for. She was supposed to have lived through what she did, but because Wolverine intervened she got to live the childhood she was never given. She even had a name, Laura. Why, why did she get to live like some pet, being cared for and actually loved. Why wasn't she the one who got to suffer, why wasn't she the one who got experimented on, tortured, beaten, and denied anything resembling humanity. It should have been her. No one loved Vesper, not even Victor and Raven, but they were as close to a family as she could get.

"When I find X-23, I will kill her," she declared.

"Good keep nursing that hate, but save it, you'll get your chance soon enough," Victor promised.

Vesper waited for her chance for months, spying on X-23 when she had the chance and learning everything she could about her. Killing and sex were just momentary distractions for her.

"When I find her, it won't be quick and painless. She will live through everything I did, she will know what suffering is." she promised herself.

And in the Institute's lab, her vitals began to kick up, her eyes fluttered open, and Vesper regained consciousness.

_A/N: I really liked writing this chapter, thought Vesper/X-24 was a pretty fascinating character to write and I hope I've shed some light on her_


	11. X-24: Part 4

**Chapter 11**

**(X-24 Pt 4)  
**

Logan and Sarah were having a quiet breakfast the next morning following what had happened. This had to have been the hardest thing to tell Laura, that she had been cloned from her father. It had put some distance between her and her parents for keeping this veil up her whole life. When Department H had gotten Sarah and Laura settled into their home back in Toronto, she and Logan both agreed that someday they would have to tell Laura the truth of what she was. But as she grew up, it just got harder. It's not like Sarah was entirely wrong, did she really need to know, she was happy the way things were. But X-24 changed all that, the fact that the Facility had made another one, just meant that the veil had to be lifted. Through it all no one was blaming Sarah more than herself.

"If I had just been more thorough, looked for any copies or backups, they wouldn't have been able to make X-24. Then Laura never would have had to know. This is all my fault." she said.

Logan put his hand on her to comfort her.

"This isn't your fault Sarah," he said softly, "You couldn't have known they had backups. And who's to say they wouldn't have tried that on someone else. People like them always find a life to ruin."

Just then McCoy ran into the kitchen in a panic, "LOGAN!" he yelled.

"Where's the fire Hank?" he asked.

"X-24, she escaped." McCoy said back.

The examined the lab they had been keeping X-24 in. The restraints had been slashed and the door cut open. There was only one place she would go, wherever Laura was. One thing they could count on from X-24 was how single minded she was. She wanted Laura dead more than anything and she was going to make sure that happened. But when they went to look for Laura, they couldn't find her on campus. Her bike was even missing from the garage, along with one of the faculty's cars, probably Scott's.

"Logan you have to go after her, she could be killed," Sarah said panicking.

And with that Jean got on Cerebro and tracked Laura to a spot near the US/Canada border.

Back in that spot, Laura was sitting by herself by a campfire. She was waiting for Vesper to find her. Vesper began to creep up on her from some rocks.

"Don't bother, I know you're there," Laura said, "I've had your scent ever since we met, it smells like mine with some slight differences."

Vesper jumped right behind her, claws drawn. Laura stood up to face her.

"Is this the part where you tell me I don't have to do this?" Vesper asked.

"Somehow I get the feeling you want to anyway," Laura said back.

"So did your "parents" tell you the truth," Vesper asked.

"Yes," Laura said.

"How did it make you feel?" Vesper asked.

"Angry, confused, betrayed," Laura said. Vesper smirked. "I'm not sure if I can forgive them," Laura said, "But I won't let you kill me Vesper."

And with that she unsheathed her claws. The two girls charged at each other.

Laura was counting on Vesper's rage to give her the advantage. As long as she could keep her head clear and calm she could still come out on top. Vesper thought she had the advantage having the instinct to kill, being more vicious, and having admantium claws. Laura dodged what she could and made her hits count, but even enraged Vesper wasn't an opponent to take lightly. Then Laura got the perfect opportunity, Vesper stabbed at her but her claws went into the rock face. Seizing this moment Laura sank both sets of her claws into Vesper's chest and with that Vesper fell on the ground. Not dead but it would be awhile before she got back up again.

"I'm sorry this all happened to you," Laura said to her, "You shouldn't have had to live through what you did, but it's not my fault. None of it."

Then Laura heard choppers overhead, they all had insignias on them that had what looked like an eagle with the word SHIELD. Out of one came Nick Fury and SHIELD agents armed. They picked up Vesper's body, chained her up, and took her away.

"Hey what are you doing with her?" Laura said as she tried to get to Vesper only to be stopped by Fury.

"It's none of your concern Laura," he said, "Go home."

Laura just stood there alone, even after the SHIELD choppers had left, wondering what would happen to Vesper.

"If mom and dad hadn't done anything, could I have been like her? Could that be me being dragged away by those people?" she asked herself.

Laura drove back to the institute. When she got back inside, she found Kitty.

"Oh my god Laura," the young woman said as she embraced her, "Are you okay?"

"I don't know if I'm ever gonna be okay again Kitty," Laura said back.

"Yeah I know it's all a lot to take in," Kitty said, "For what it's worth, to me you're still that little kid I used to babysit."

"Thanks Kitty," Laura said back.

"Come on, your mom's been worried about you," Kitty said and with that she led Laura to her Logan and Sarah's bedroom.

Inside they found Sarah sobbing her eyes out. "Mom," Laura said. Sarah turned her head to see Laura. She then immediately took her daughter in her arms and held her tight.

"I was so worried about you," Sarah said, "When Megan disappeared..."

"Wait mom did you say Megan's gone?" Laura asked.

"We found out a little after your father went looking for you," Sarah said, "But some of her things are gone, we think she ran away."

Laura's eyes widened at what she just heard.

_A/N: Megan's gone? Where could she have gone? What will happen between Logan, Sarah, Laura, and Megan. Will things ever go back to the way they were? Is this the last we've seen of Vesper? Does Laura still want to be an X-Man like her dad even after what she's learned?_


	12. Megan's Story

**Chapter 12**

**(Megan's Story)  
**

Megan didn't know where she was going to go having run away from home. Go back to San Francisco, New York had been her home for so long she would feel like a stranger there now. She decided New York would do, it was a big city. She would be just one more face in the crowds. No one would notice her. Course now she didn't know how she was going to make a living, she wasn't sure if she could find a job, and right now she was feeling pretty hungry. Eventually she sat down in a subway station. And wondered what she was going to do, that maybe she might have made a mistake leaving home. But she wasn't sure she wanted to go back. For several hours people just passed her by not noticing her.

"You're doing it all wrong chick," a voice said to her.

Megan turned her head to notice another girl her age, with medium length blonde hair that looked like it hadn't seen a shower in ever, dressed in ratty second hand clothes that were at least comfortable.

"What?" Megan asked.

"You're trying to get people to pass ya change, but you're doing it all wrong," the other girl said.

"I'm not trying to get spare change, I'm just trying to figure out what to do," Megan said.

"Aw," the other girl said back, "So how's that working?"

"I don't have a clue," Megan said.

"Yeah I didn't either at first," the girl said. She then held her hand out to Megan. "Why don't you come hang with me and my friends, the pimps come here looking for new girls sometimes."

"Oh thanks," Megan said and she took the girls hand and got up on her feet.

"Name's Kiden by the way," Kiden said.

"I'm Megan," Megan said back.

Megan followed Kiden for a while.

"So how long have you been here," Megan asked.

"What on the streets, let's see," Kiden said, "First ran away when I was like fourteen I think, so bout a couple years."

"What made you do that?" Megan asked.

"Long story," Kiden said, "Just know that I hated life at home at school, and then one day I found out I was a mutant and thought I had a punched out ticket to freedom."

"Wait you're a mutant?" Megan asked.

"Is that a problem?" Kiden asked back.

"No," Megan said, "I grew up around mutants."

"What ya lived with the X-Men or something?" Kiden asked.

The look on Megan's face said everything.

"Holy crap I didn't think they let humans live there," Kiden said astonished.

"It kind of helped that my aunt and uncle work there," Megan said.

"How did you end up there?" Kiden asked.

"My mom died, and I didn't have any other family to take care of me." Megan said.

"So why run away, seems like you had it pretty comfy there?" Kiden asked.

Megan looked away.

"Okay fine, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. Not here to judge." Kiden said putting her hands up and smiling.

Eventually they came to a makeshift shelter that housed three other people, a Latino girl, and a young black man, with what appeared to be his little brother.

"That's Tatiana, Bobby, and Lil' Bro," Kiden pointed out, "Guys this girl's Megan, she's gonna hang with us."

"Hi," Tatiana said.

"And yeah they're all mutants to," Kiden said.

"It's fine," Megan said.

"I don't understand," Sarah said, "Why would Megan do this?"

She and Logan had been looking for Megan ever since she had run away from the Institute, which had been two days now. Logan had called Jamie Madrox at X-Factor and put them on the look for her since they had more connections in Mutant Town and the city

"Don't worry we'll find her Sarah," Logan said.

"She's all I have left of my sister Logan, we practically raised her along with Laura." Sarah said.

"I think I might know why," a voice said from the doorway, it was Kevin. "I think Megan's been feeling lonely. I think it might be cause of me and Laura."

"Kevin I doubt it's jealousy," Logan replied.

"Yeah but ever since me and Laura hooked up, they haven't been talking to each other like they used to," Kevin said back.

"Kevin," Logan said, "You take care of yourself and Laura. Let us worry about Megan. Once we find her we'll straighten this all out."

And with that Kevin left them alone. Then Logan's cell rang, "Yeah," he said.

"We got a trail on your niece Logan," it was Madrox on the other end.

"Alright where?" he asked.

"Rahne picked up her scent in a subway station, if she got into Mutant town, shouldn't be long before we find her. Right now I got my people asking around, which is mostly my dupes at the moment." Madrox said.

"Alright thanks bub," Logan.

"Logan tell Sarah we're gonna find her, and that's not a promise, it's a guarantee." Madrox said. With that they hung up.

Megan and Kiden were at a pier enjoying the view. Kiden could notice that she was looking kind of blue.

"Hey what's wrong?" She asked.

"Before my mom died I was living in San Francisco. It had a place like this called the Fisherman's Wharf. It's a pretty cool tourist trap, we spent a lot of time there when I was growing up. This isn't as nice as but it reminds me a little of it." Megan said.

"My dad died when I was little, got shot by a gangbanger. From then on, everything was one big downward spiral for me." Kiden said. "Things just got worse with my brother, mom, and me. I haven't heard from them since I ran away."

"You ever wonder if you made the right choice?" Megan asked.

"Did a couple times, but once I found Tatiana, Bobby,and Lil' Bro they sort of became my family. Now it's kind of late to wonder about what if, so I'm just trying to make the most of what I got." Kiden said. "Why did you run away?"

"When I first moved in with my aunt, uncle, and cousin things were good. My cousin and me, we've been best friends since we were little. So she was always there for me after my mom died." Megan said.

"What changed?" Kiden asked.

"My cousin's a mutant just like my uncle. So she was always excited about getting her powers and when they finally came out, well..."

"What you were jealous or something?" Kiden asked.

"No I was glad for her, but my cousin's wanted to be an X-Man her whole life, cause her dad is." Megan said.

"You're related to an X-Man?" Kiden asked amazed.

"Yeah," Megan said.

"Which one?" Kiden asked.

"Wolverine," Megan said reluctantly.

"Get out," Kiden said, "Your uncle is Wolverine?"

Then Kiden noticed that this wasn't something that was really making Megan feel better.

"Sorry about that," Kiden said.

"No it's alright," Megan said.

"Okay so your cousin wants to be an X-Man, so what's wrong?" Kiden asked.

"I guess I felt like she was going somewhere and leaving me behind. I always told myself, no matter how bad life is, at least I had her. Just the two of us, united against life as we know it." Megan said.

"They took care of you didn't they? I mean it sounds like your aunt, uncle, and cousin love ya. Did you ever try talking to them?" Kiden asked.

"What was I supposed to say?" Megan asked.

"I dunno," Kiden said back, "But I think you might have made the wrong choice, but that's just me. You wanna stay here with us, no prob, you're our friend Megan, we'll look out for you."

Megan smiled slightly, "Thanks."

When the two girls began to walk away from the Pier, Megan heard a voice call her name.

"Megan," She turned around, it was Logan.

"Uncle Logan," she said.

"I'm here to take ya home darlin'," he said.

"I don't... I," she looked at Kiden.

"You should go," Kiden said, "Believe me if I could go back and fix things with my family, I would in a heartbeat. You still can though."

Kiden put her hand on Megan's shoulder, walked away, and disappeared in front of them.

"What was that?" Logan asked.

"She can stop time for herself." Megan said, "Uncle Logan I'm..."

"It's okay Megan. A lot of crap got dumped on us. We know why you left." Logan put his hand on his niece's shoulder, "You're not alone Megan." Megan hugged her uncle and cried into his chest.

"Thanks for looking for me," she said.

"I was worried about you, we all were. That's what families do for each other." he said.

Megan forced herself to choke back the tears, and looked him the eye.

"I wanna go home now." And with that she took her uncle's hand and walked back home.

When she got back she and Laura hugged each other like they hadn't seen each other in years. Out by sixteen, no, not anymore. And not dead on the scene either. But together forever, yeah. United against life as they knew it.

_ A/N: Nice change of pace huh? Little cameo from the NYX gang. Now personally I don't like NYX, think it really fails at what it tries to do and the whole prostitute thing for Laura, well it's not as bad as making Spider-Man make a deal with Mephisto, but it's still one of the stupidest ideas Joe Quesada came up with. Now if I had my way NYX would have been retconned out of existence, but Margerie Liu justified it so no point in complaining. I didn't think that was possible, it's part of why I say she's a miracle worker and a better X-23 writer than Kyle & Yost. If you're gonna read NYX, I recommend you pick up the X-23 one shot Liu wrote, it makes it a lot easier to digest, otherwise just skip it. Though the sequel NYX: No Way Out I definitely recommend._


	13. Weapon X: Part 1

**Chapter 13**

**(Weapon X Pt 1)  
**

_Two years ago_

Martin Sutter had returned to the site where his facility had stood. There were nothing but dead bodies everywhere and X-24 was long gone, along with Sabretooth. The data had survived but what did it matter? All the personnel in that facility were dead, the equipment destroyed, and it would be too expensive now to rebuild. Everything he had worked for gone.

"It would seem you could use a hand Martin?" a voice said.

Sutter turned his gaze to a man in a suit, wearing dark glasses, with a scarred face, Malcolm Colcord.

"Malcolm," he said, "What are you doing here? Weapon X no longer exists."

"Come now Martin," Colcord said, "You know the old saying, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

Sutter was surprised. "You've restarted Weapon X?" he asked.

"I've done more than just restart it Martin," Colcord said, "I've put together a team of specialists. With our resources combined there's no limit to what we can do."

_Present Day_

Sutter had merged what was left of the Facility with the new Weapon X. They still had data from X-23, but conditioning X-24 to specs had been a process that had taken much time and effort, neither of which could expended at this point. So instead Colocord proposed they recapture X-24, using the new Team X, which consisted of Wild Child, Marrow, Agent Zero, Silverfox, Copycat, and former SHIELD agent Brent Jackson. They were going to break into the SHIELD prison that was holding X-24 and retrieve her. Jackson's knowledge of SHIELD's security combined with Copycat's shapeshifting and Agent Zero's expertise in stealth would get them inside with little to no difficulty. Copycat and Zero maneuvered inside the prison taking direction from Jackson. Eventually they arrived at X-24's holding cell, and found the girl chained up and asleep.

Vesper awoke to an unfamiliar scent and noticed Agent Zero and Copycat. Agent Zero was dressed from head to toe in stealth gear and for some reason she couldn't smell him. Copycat had chalk white skin and hair with pitch black eyes.

"X-24," Zero said, "You are coming with us."

"Did Victor send you?" she asked.

"We're not with Sabretooth," Copycat said, "We're Weapon X. So let's get you back home."

Vesper scoffed, "Like hell I'm going with you. I'm done taking orders from humans. I kill humans now."

"You belong to Weapon X, that is all you need to know," Zero said.

"Yeah tell this to Weapon X," Vesper said and she extended her middle finger to them.

Zero moved in on her but Vesper dodged him. Copycat tried to get her but she dodged her as well. SHIELD had put Vesper in special restraints that prevented her from extending her claws. She attempted to get away but Zero grabbed by the hair and delivered a swift strike to her head knocking her out. With that Zero and Copycat placed her in a bodybag and made their way out.

When Vesper finally came to she was back in that old familiar white tiled cell she had spent her childhood in.

"Hello X-24," a voice said over a speaker.

"Sutter," she said under her breath,

"Don't know if you heard but I don't answer to that anymore. My name's Vesper. In fact I don't answer to humans at all anymore."

"I assume this would be something you picked up from Sabretooth." another voice said, "My name is Malcolm Colcord. I am the director of Weapon X, your new commander."

"What part of I don't answer to humans anymore did you not hear?" Vesper asked.

"Do you know what Weapon X did to Wolverine?" Colcord asked, "Do you know how they turned him into a weapon? They erased his memories and reprogrammed him. We will do the same to you X-24."

Vesper's eyes went wide. She was worried, something she hadn't felt in a long time. No she had just gotten her freedom, she had formed an identity. Now these stinking humans were going to take it away and make her back into a machine. She was alone and neither Victor or Raven were going to come to save her.

"What if I make a deal with you?" she asked.

"What could you have to give us?" Colcord asked.

Vesper gulped. "I... I can give you X-23. You take her and I go free." she said.

_A/N: What you didn't think I was gone did ya and *le gasp* Vesper's gonna hand Laura over to Weapon X in exchange for her freedom, will she get it? Will Laura be turned into the killing machine we've all become familiar with? What will Sutter and Colcord do now that they've joined forces and restarted Weapon X?_


	14. Weapon X: Part 2

**Chapter 14**

**(Weapon X Pt 2)  
**

Sutter and Colcord stood in the monitor room pondering X-24's offer.

Sutter then broke the silence, "Are you really going to take her offer Malcolm?"

"Of course not Martin," Colcord replied, "X-24 is far too valuable to simply let go, but having X-23 as well. I am not about turn down a potential asset. We'll capture X-23, put her through the bonding process, and wipe and reprogram her along with X-24." Colcord made his way out of the room, "Tell Team X they have a new assignment and X-24 is going with them."

Through a pear of night vision binoculars Wild Child was observing X-23 from a distance. Then he noticed Wolverine come into his line of sight.

"Someone's a real daddy's girl," he snarked, "This getting you all hot with vengeance Fox?"

He looked to Silverfox. Silverfox had been a member in the original Team X with Wolverine, Sabretooth, Maverick, and Wraith. Just like them Weapon X had tampered with her memories, but most of them were still foggy. Right now Weapon X was the only link to her past she had, and to get answers she would do whatever they asked. Right now Weapon X had informed her that Wolverine had murdered her whole tribe decades ago, and she was going to make him pay for that.

"There are at least nine telepaths in this school," Zero said over the comm, "We can't capture X-23, not while she's here at the school. We'll have to wait for her to leave but there's going to be the matter of capturing her."

Vesper was away in the nondescript van Team X had been supplied with, kept under eye by Marrow and Copycat.

Vesper motioned to take the comm. "I can distract her. Once I got her attention you can knock her out."

Team X and Vesper waited for several days before Laura finally left the school. She left with Kevin for a date at Coney Island. Opportunity had finally presented itself.

While Kevin had gotten a little more used to being in public since he and Laura started dating, he was still a little apprehensive about being in a spot with so many people, but Laura assured him it would be okay as long as they stuck together. As their date went Kevin noticed that Laura really seemed to know her way around.

"You've been here a lot?" he asked.

"My parents took me, Megan, and sometimes Kitty here every year for 4th of July. The fireworks show from the ferris wheel's amazing." Laura said. She then took Kevin's hand and ran towards the ferris wheel, "Come on you'll like it."

"Yeah, sure," Kevin said as he found himself being dragged to the ride.

As the seat made its way to the apex of the wheel, Kevin took in the view he was sharing with his girlfriend. Laura laid her head on his shoulder and he smiled. After a couple more rides, Kevin got a little motion sickness and went to a bathroom, while Laura sat at a table alone.

"Hey Laura," a voice said to her. Laura turned her head to see Vesper.

"Vesper, but I saw those guys from SHIELD take you," she said.

"I broke out," Vesper said.

"Look if you're here to kill me, please don't do it here," Laura asked.

"I said I was gonna kill you Laura," Vesper said, "Why should it matter where?"

"I'm here with Kevin, my boyfriend," Laura said.

"Oh maybe I'll kill him to," Vesper said back grinning.

"I know why you're like this, Vesper. What you had to go through, that wasn't right, no one should have had to suffer through that. And it's worse because no one cared about you." Laura turned her head to look Vesper in the face, "You can change Vesper, let me help you."

Vesper was taken aback by the notion. She had tried to kill this girl twice, Laura had every reason not to trust her to change, but she still reached out to her.

"Why?" Vesper asked.

"Because, I believe you deserve a chance to start over." Laura said.

Vesper looked down, "It's too late for me."

Just then an explosion went off near the park and people ran. Laura took off to look for Kevin. Only to feel herself get sucker punched by Silverfox. Kevin managed to catch up to her only have a blow to the head from Agent Zero. Team X was using the chaos to mask the kidnapping. Zero, Fox, and Vesper returned to the Team X van.

"The boy's not our target," Jackson remarked.

"He saw us, we're going to have to take him." Zero said back.

"Colcord might like him. He can disintegrate organic matter with physical contact," Marrow mentioned.

Team X took off to its rendezvous point with their plane and made their way back to the Weapon X base.

Colcord and Sutter looked at their spoils and Colcord looked to Vesper, "Well done X-24, you brought back more than we expected. This Wither boy will prove useful after he's been reprogrammed and conditioned."

"Okay I kept my end of the deal, now your turn." Vesper said.

Colcord motioned to Agent Zero and he stuck a needle in Vesper's neck. Vesper tried to slash Zero but he managed to get out of her reach. Vesper than began to feel woozy and collapsed to the floor sedated.

"Get her into a containment cell. I don't want her able to move until we've reconditioned her." Colcord commanded.

Kevin came to in a white tiled cell. He was alone. Everything was bright and harsh to look at. It disoriented him.

"Get used to that kid, this is gonna be your new home." a voice said to him.

Kevin looked out the small window to see a woman with pink hair and skin with what appeared to be bones coming out of her body.

"Name's Marrow, welcome to Weapon X." she said.

"What do you people want with me?" Kevin asked.

"Well originally we were after your girlfriend but you're a nice bonus for obvious reasons," Marrow said.

Kevin then realized that they wanted to use his death touch.

"Course first we're gonna have to pick your brain before you can be useful. See ya," Marrow said and with that she walked off.

Right now all Kevin could think about were all those conspiracy theories Santo blabbered on about brainwashing. If that hunk of rock were here right now he wouldn't shut up about him being finally proven right about something.

"I really hate you right now Santo," Kevin said to himself. Didn't matter, he had to figure out how he was gonna get out and find Laura and then get them both out and then get back home.

Meanwhile Colcord and Sutter stood with their scientific advisers.

"Now as you're aware director, for both X-23 and 24 to be at their most effective when we begin the bonding process they need to be full mature. It's a given that their claws would mature faster than the rest of their bodies, however they are both still for the most part physically adolescents. I do not believe they will be ready for the full bonding process till 25 unless you want to stunt their growth." he said.

"All we need to focus on right now is X-23's claws and conditioning them. The full bonding process can wait," Colcord stated, "How soon can you start?"

"We can go right now," the adviser said.

"Do it then." Colcord said.

"Malcolm I am only telling you this as a colleague because this also happened to me. Shortly after X-23's birth Wolverine stormed my facility, killed almost all of my men, and fled with X-23. The same thing happened with X-24." Sutter said.

"Only because you had a security leak from a solitary woman and Creed, Martin." Colcord said. He turned his harsh gaze to Sutter, "I assure you no such thing will happen under my command. My personnel are all loyal and reliable."

"We have X-23, Wolverine will look for her," Sutter said.

Colcord smiled, "I already have someone to see to that. Trust me Martin, we crafted this agent specifically to combat Wolverine."

Elsewhere in a lab Laura was strapped to a surgical table. She was under from anesthesia and her claws had been forcibly extracted. One of the surgeons was sharpening them to resemble a blade. As soon all six claws had been sharpened they were then coated in molten adamantium and surgically reinserted back into Laura's body. Hours later Laura came to and all of a sudden her hands and feet felt, heavier. She unsheathed her claws and saw that they were now coated in adamantium just like her father. This was just the beginning, the beginning of the process to make her into a killing machine just like her father, and Vesper.

_A/N: Giga gasp Laura's claws are now made of metal, and now Weapon X has Wither, and just who is this agent Colcord has sent to deal with Wolverine?_


	15. Weapon X: Part 3

**Chapter 15**

**(Weapon X Pt 3)  
**

It had been two weeks since Laura and Kevin had been captured by Weapon X. Jean walked out of Cerebro with her head hanging low. Sarah and Megan had been standing outside waiting.

"I'm sorry Sarah, I couldn't find either Laura or Kevin." she said, "Wherever they are they must be shielded."

She put her hand on Sarah's shoulder to reassure her, "I'm sure they're still alive."

"They are alive Jean, if they're dead they're no good to the Facility."

"But I thought what they did to that other girl took years, how are they gonna do that to Laura now." Megan asked.

"If I know Sutter he found a way." Sarah said.

Elsewhere in the city in a dive of a bar, Logan arrived. He came to a table with a man of about average height but with above average build and short cut brown hair. One of Logan's few friends he did not take to his family, Christoph Nord but in Team X, the first Team X, he was known as Maverick.

"Ya find anything Nord?" he asked.

Nord pulled out a brown envelope and handed it to Logan.

"I had to call in a lot of favors for this Logan. But it's to get your daughter back, so it ought to be worth it." Nord said.

Logan went throught he photos and documents, "Malcolm Colcord, he's the new head honcho?" Logan asked. "Who is he?"

"You remember him?" Nord asked.

"Not really bub," Logan said back.

"Well he remembers you. You're why he's so pretty right now." Nord said as he drank.

"He merged the Facility," Logan said as he continued to thumb through. Then he noticed something peculiar, "Fox is still with 'em?"

"Turns out she still hasn't recovered a lot of her memory. Weapon X is feeding her bits of her past in exchange for her staying on Team X." Nord explained.

Logan got up from his seat, "Thanks Nord."

"You want me to go with you on this one partner?" Nord offered.

"Naw, I'm better doing this myself, but thanks anyway." Logan said.

Logan had suited and packed up. He was gonna raze all kinds of hell on Weapon X. Bad enough what those sadists did to him, now they had Laura and Kevin and were they gonna do it to them as well, and they were just kids. Sarah stood there in the doorway watching.

As Logan began walked past her Sarah spoke up, "Logan, don't just free Laura and Kevin, come back with them. Please, don't let our daughter come home without her father."

"Even if I gotta claw my way up from Hell, I'll come back Sarah," he turned his head to his wife, "That's a promise."

Sarah kissed him, "You make those sons of bitches pay for taking her."

Logan grinned, "Ya got it darlin'."

And with that Logan took off in the Blackbird and headed off to get back Laura and Kevin.

The Blackbird touched down somewhere in the Canadian wilderness. Some miles from where the Weapon X facility was supposed to be. Logan exited from the Blackbird and began his trek through the forest.

A mile or two and then Logan picked up a scent, "What the..." FOOM! A crossbow bolt shot into his shoulder and pinned him to a tree. "The hell's goin' on here?" Logan asked.

"That would be me," a voice said.

It belonged to a woman, black, with the build of a female bodybuilder, and a sadistic looking grin. This woman loved hurting other people. Logan ripped the bolt out of his shoulder.

"And you would be lady?" he asked.

"Name's Kimura, and my job's to keep you out of the base and or kill you, though my boss wasn't really specific on the last part." Kimura said and she fired more bolts at Logan.

Logan strafed out of the line of fire, drew his claws and charged at Kimura. When he tried to stab her though he found he couldn't even pierce her skin.

"What the hell?"

Kimura grabbed him by the throat and threw him to the ground. She then stepped on Logan's throat while he was down and just put pressure on it.

"Yeah they made me especially for you."

Back in the Weapon X base Laura had her head repeatedly drowned into a tub of water as part of her new conditioning, this was to get out any resistance left in her. Vesper was in her containment cell was being put through sleep deprivation in order to, what Colcord referred to as, debug her. Kevin was tied to a chair and repeatedly beaten in order to make him want to kill someone with his powers. They had only been two weeks in this place and they already looked like they were in Hell. When they weren't being conditioned they were kept separated from each other in order to further break them down.

"All three are still showing resistance to the conditioning to varying degrees," a Weapon X scientist said to Colcord and Sutter.

"Director," a security guard said, "Agent Kimura has made contact with Wolverine."

"Good allow her to proceed," Colcord said.

"Colcord!" yelled Silverfox as she entered the room angry, "We had a deal, Wolverine would be mine to kill. You're letting Kimura do it!"

"Kimura is the perfect counter measure against Wolverine, Silverfox. Right now I need results, not angry women with vendettas." Colcord said. Silverfox was about to leave infuriated, when two Weapon X guards stopped her. "Don't forget," Colcord said, "I still have what you want." And with that Silverfox stormed out.

After she had gone Sutter turned to Colcord, "Malcolm exactly how did you describe your personnel again?" he asked.

"As long as I maintain leverage, Silverfox can still be controlled." Colcord said.

"You think that, just because you have that woman's entire past at your fingertips," Sutter remarked. "If she's put into a position where she has nothing to lose."

"That is what we have Agent Zero for," Colcord said.

Silverfox made her way to her quarters to find a curious envelope. In it was a report detailing the slaughter of the Blackfoot tribe, Silverfox's tribe. As she scanned through it, she saw that she had been lied to by Colcord. The report read;

"_Agent Creed was found at the scene of a Blackfoot Indian reservation in the area... All of its residents were either dead or dying... When questioned, Agent Creed admitted to responsibility for the killing... Agent Creed will be dealt with accordingly... However this accident has revealed a potential asset in the woman known as Silverfox... She appears to possess enhanced regenerative abilities similar to Agents Logan and Creed... Silverfox will be memory wiped along with Agents Logan and Creed and inserted into Team X upon completion of conditioning... _

_From the desk of Professor Thorton, Head of Weapon X"_

Silver Fox flipped through photographs that came with the report, and all of a sudden she felt a migraine come on as some of her memory returned. It was then she realized that if Colcord had lied about this, there was no telling what else he lied about. Silverfox wasn't the type of woman that took being manipulated sitting down. From then on she knew what had to be done. Silverfox made her way to Laura's cell, she shot the guards with her silenced pistol and opened the door. When she opened the door Laura just stared at her with a deathly looking gaze, she looked like a beaten dog. She backed away in fear.

Fox raised her hand to her, "It's alright I'm here to get you and Wither out," she said.

"Why... are you helping me now? You brought me and Kevin to this place, look what they did to me."

Laura unsheathed her claws revealing now adamantium laced ones instead of bone.

"Colcord used me, lied to me, and I want to make that bastard pay for it." Fox said.

Laura wasn't convinced. "Yeah so what, you handed me and Kevin to them and you didn't think twice about it."

"Do you have any idea what it's like to live without a past?" Fox asked, "I've spent every moment of my life wondering who I am, where I came from, what I did. I was desperate and Colcord said he had the answers. Tell me Laura what would you have done in my position?"

"I never would have sold kids to these assholes," Laura said.

"Perhaps I did make the wrong choice, but right now I'm the best chance you have of getting out." Fox said, "So Laura what are you going to do?"

Laura thought for a moment and realized she was right. "We don't just leave with Kevin, Vesper to." she said.

"She'll try to kill you again if you do this," Fox reminded her.

"She needs to know, that someone did care about her." Laura said.

"You don't really expect her to change?" Fox said.

"Well I'm gonna try anyway," Laura said, "If it were me in her shoes, mom, dad, Megan, they all would give anything to save me."

"Fine," Fox said, "Your life."

Laura and Silverfox made their way to Kevin and Vesper's cells, they freed them both but there was still the matter of distracting the guards.

"We're going to need something massive to draw their attention," Fox said.

Vesper scoffed, "Fine I'll do it." she said.

"What?" Kevin asked stunned.

"Vesper if you do this you could get killed," Laura said.

"Laura what's the one thing I want more than anything?" Vesper asked back.

"You," Laura paused, "You wanna kill me."

"Yeah, and nothing's gonna get in my way. Not your boyfriend, not Wolverine, not the X-Men, and certainly not a small group of Weapon X's "finest"." Vesper walked away from the group "Laura, when I kill you, I want you at your best when I do it. So work your ass off till then."

With that Vesper ran off. A short while later an alarm went off and Laura, Kevin, and Fox took their chance. With the guards distracted they could move virtually undetected. Then they got jumped by Wild Child. He took out Silverfox and then tried to move on Laura, but Kevin saw to that.

"You stay away from my girlfriend you creep!" Kevin yelled as he laid his hand on Wild Child's face.

He yelled in shock at what was happening to him as his face began to disintegrate. Kevin then let his grip go and Wild Child recoiled, his face all disfigured. Laura and Kevin then picked up Silverfox and made their way to the exit.

Outside Logan was still dealing with Kimura. So far he had taken the punishment as he hadn't even been able to scratch her. Right now Kimura had activated a device that emitted a high pitch noise that really kept Logan down due to his enhanced hearing. Right now Logan was bleeding out his eyes and nose and he was more enraged than ever, but this time he was fighting an opponent that had been designed to fight him. Then Kimura took a gunshot to her head and noticed Silverfox with Laura, who was reeling in pain from the noise, and Kevin.

"Aw I'm sorry Fox, was he yours?" Kimura taunted.

Fox opened fire and took out the device and Kimura turned to notice Logan growling like a beast. RAAAAR!

"Swipe those claws at me all you want, you can't pierce my skin, they made it so not even adamantium can." Kimura yelled.

"Just your skin right?" Logan asked.

Kimura winded up a punch to Logan's face, "Thanks for the tip." he said as he sheathed his claws and made a fist and sent it towards Kimura's.

And right when the two fists collided with each other, every bone in Kimura's hand cracked. Kimura howled in pain. Logan kept bare knuckle boxing her till he had broken a good chunk of her bones. Kimura fell down into the snow beaten.

"I'm the best there is at what I do for a reason," Logan said.

With that Silverfox took off back to the base.

"Fox," Logan called out.

"I still have business with Colcord that needs finishing Logan, don't try to stop me," she said.

Logan grabbed her arm, "Fox I remember everything. We knew each other once. We loved each other." Silverfox looked at Logan but got her arm out of his grip. "Fox I can help you get your memories back. Please."

Silverfox put her hand to Logan's face and looked away. "Even if what you say is true Logan, that happened a lifetime ago, it's ancient history now." Silverfox looked to Laura, "Laura your father is going to need some looking after, he can't really take care of himself."

"Oh uh yeah sure," Laura responded perplexed.

"She's going to grow up to be a great young woman, you must be proud." Fox said to Logan and with that she ran off back to the Weapon X base.

"Dad," Laura said, "Let's go home now."

"Yeah," Logan said.

Colcord was scrambling to regain control over the chaos X-24 had caused.

"Where the hell is Agent Zero, why hasn't he been activated?" he yelled into his comm.

Then his door opened, it was Silverfox with a gun trained on Colcord.

"You lied to me," she said.

"Kill me and you'll never..."

"Save it Malcolm, you're just a sad little king of a sad little hill. You have no bargaining chip, no leverage, and nothing to threaten me with." Fox said as she opened fire on Colcord and put a bullet in his head.

She then picked up the file that had all the documentation to her past and left. Elsewhere Sutter had scrambled to an escape chopper, were was he going, he had no idea now.

Right when he got into the chopper, "Going somewhere?" X-24 was already in there, waiting for him, and her claws were drawn.

Silverfox approached the Weapon X chopper and found Sutter's mangled corpse on the ground.

"Well that sure was a weight off my back," Vesper said.

Fox just got inside, "I don't suppose the Facility..."

"Trained me to fly a chopper, yeah." said Vesper as she prepped the chopper for takeoff. The pair took off and flew away.

"So what made you decide to free us," Vesper asked.

"Someone left me the truth," Silverfox said as she poured through her file.

Elsewhere far away from the base was Agent Zero. Agent Zero then removed his mask feeling he was out of anyone's view and revealed himself to be none other than the Maverick himself, Christoph Nord.

_A/N: Can I write an epic chapter or can I write an epic chapter?_


	16. SNIKT & SMASH: Part 1

**Chapter 16**

**(SNKIT & SMASH Pt 1)**

Nearly three months since the Weapon X incident had gone by. Laura had initialy wanted to get rid of her new claws, but after seeing what kind of damage she could with them in the Danger Room, she decided they were worth keeping. Since this latest mishap, Laura had decided she had had enough of people getting hurt because of her and so she pushed herself to get stronger, better, especially since Vesper's promise was still ringing in her head. Logan came on her practicing in the Danger Room by alone, noticing she was fighting the Hulk program that Logan usually used. "HULK SMAH!" and right about as the hologram brought its gigantic fists on Laura it stopped.

"Huh?" Laura said.

"Any reason you're using your dad's special program?" Logan asked.

"I needed a tough opponent to fight," Laura replied looking away.

Logan turned Laura to face him.

"Hey you're tough, I raised you to be, but you ain't ready for a Hulk. Hell I wasn't the first time. Only reason I'm still standing is cause of that adamantium skeleton I got." Logan said.

"Maybe I should get one," Laura said somewhat ironic.

"Do you wanna be shorter than me the rest of your life?" Logan asked firmly.

"Relax dad I'm just kidding," Laura said defensively. "Think I'll go out for a bit."

Logan cleared his throat. "I''ll be home by curfew scout's honor." Laura said.

Right after Laura left Logan thought to himself, "Maybe we should have put her and Megan in the scouts."

Laura took Jubilee out with her to the shopping mall they frequented. Jubilee passed Laura a top and her nose twitched violently at it.

"Something up?" Jubilee asked.

"That top, smells." Laura said.

"Really," Jubilee asked. She sniffed it,

"Must be something that nose of yours picks up cause I don't smell anything. What's it smell like?"

"Toxic," Laura replied.

"We sure it's not cause you think this top looks bad?" Jubilee asked jokingly.

"No it smells toxic," Laura said.

"Whatever," Jubilee said, "Hey Homecoming's in a month, you wanna go check out dresses?"

"God I hate dresses," Laura said.

"Really not even for Kevin?" Jubilee teased.

"Not gonna work this time Jube," Laura said.

Jubilee just gave a devilish looking smirk and dragged Laura against her will to a Victoria's Secret.

"No way I'm not buying a dress from here." Laura said.

"Oh yes you are," Jubilee said.

Right when they got inside the store, Laura's nose twitched again.

"What the perfumes getting to ya?" Jubilee asked.

"No it's that scent, the toxic one, I can smell it again." Laura said she sniffed following the scent, "Wait," she sniffed again, "There's two of them."

She turned a corner and found a woman with brunette hair, and a red headed girl about Laura and Jubilee's age. The older woman seemed to be directing the younger girl.

"The trick is to find a size that can stretch enough in case of emergencies." She turned to the girl, "Popping out of a Valentino in the middle of Times Square because the Rhino is having a bad day is an experience I hope for you to avoid."

"Those two," Laura pointed out, "That's where the scent is coming from."

Jubilee's brow furrowed as she focused on the brunette.

"What?" Laura asked.

"Is that She-Hulk?" Jubilee asked herself, "Yeah that totally is She-Hulk."

Laura raised her eyebrow in disbelief, "What no way?"

Then the brunette turned her head in Laura and Jubilee's direction and they ducked behind a display.

"I'm telling you that's She-Hulk," Jubilee said.

"Okay we'll follow them and you'll be proven wrong," Laura said back.

"Usual bet?" Jubilee asked.

"Loser buys lunch, yeah." Laura said back.

Laura and Jubilee stuck to the other two, following Laura's nose, but at the same time doing their best to stay out of sight. For about a couple hours they followed the pair pretty well, then they came to an empty spot of Central Park. They hid behind some trees and it was right then Laura realized something.

"Oh crap, they led us here," she said.

"What," Jubilee said in disbelief and then BOOM the ground shook beneath them.

When the girls came to, the red head was standing in front of them but this time she was bigger, more muscular, and green.

"HA you owe me lunch!" Jubilee yelled with glee.

"Not the time Jube," Laura said as the red head hiked them up by their shirts.

"Who do you work for?" she asked the girls.

And then SNIKT! Laura stuck her with one of her foot claws in the leg and she dropped them. The red head looked up as she realized it was Laura that had done that.

"I am going to rip your limbs apart," she said angrily.

"Go ahead and try," Laura said as she unsheathed her hand claws.

The two went at each other. The red head kept trying to hit her but Laura used her agility to evade and managed to land a few deep cuts on her. Then the red head grabbed Laura and threw her into a tree. Every bone in Laura's body shattered at the impact.

"Dad, was right," she thought to herself as the red head hiked her up by the hair, "I'm not ready for a hulk."

"Put her down," a voice said.

The red head turned to see another giant green woman, who resembled the brunette she had been with. Jubilee did a double take at what she was seeing.

"Two She-Hulks, when did this happen?"

"She attacked me, it's no less than she deserves," the red head said defensively.

"Lyra, put her down now." the older She-Hulk said with a tone that made the younger one remember who was in charge and she dropped Laura.

The older She-Hulk knelt down to Laura and examined her, "Alright metal claws, you must be Logan's girl."

"You know my dad?" Laura asked.

"Yeah," the older She-Hulk said, "Name's Jen Walters, the Sensational She-Hulk. You just met my niece Lyra the Savage She-Hulk."

She pointed her thumb at Lyra.

_A/N: Hey can someone at Marvel tell me why we haven't seen any interaction between X-23 and Lyra. That would've made Avengers Academy worth reading if you ask me. I'm convinced Christos Gage didn't know what he had his hands on._


	17. SNIKT & SMASH: Part 2

(SNIKT & SMASH Pt 2)

_At the Xavier School for Higher Learning, later that day_

"Logan what was it I told you about you and that reckless lifestyle you have?" Sarash asked Logan in an accusatory tone.

"Hey now you..." but before he could finish Sarah cut him off.

"I specifically said SHE IS PICKING UP BEHAVIORS FROM YOU!" Sarah said with her fist hitting her palm to emphasize her point. "As her father you're supposed to be setting an example for her, NOT TELLING HER STORIES ABOUT ALL THE INSANE THINGS YOU'VE DONE FIGHTING MONSTERS AND SUPERVILLAINS!"

"I told those so she wouldn't go out and copy me," he said trying to defend himself.

"The one where the Hulk ripped you in half ended with, "It was epic." Sarah said with a eyes like daggers.

Jen was surprised at the thought of someone like Wolverine being ripped in half.

"Bruce... ripped you in half? I thought your skeleton was... well indestructible." Jen asked Logan.

"Yeah but the joints connecting 'em ain't." Logan replied.

"I'm not finished with you," said Sarah angrily, but then Jen decided to intervene. She pulled Sarah away to talk with her more privately. "Ms. Walters, someone has to teach my husband a lesson in parental responsibility."

"Then make him sleep on the couch for this, but I think you should hear me out cause you may be blowing this a bit out of proportion." Jen said calmly.

Sarah sighed, "Alright, tell me."

"I'm not gonna deny that what Laura did was unwise, but Lyra also attacked her without being provoked. Laura was just defending herself and her friend. Now I've reprimanded Lyra for her actions and the girls kissed and made up. What's more, they found out that they like each other and I really think this is a good opportunity, especially considering that Lyra doesn't have that many friends at her school." Jen said.

Sarah thought for a moment. She reached her hand out to Jen.

"I apologize Ms. Walters for my display and..."

Jen took her hand, "Please it's just Jen." she friendly insisted.

"Sarah," she replied, "And again I'm sorry."

"I'm an attorney, believe me I've been in some ugly divorce cases and seen just how bloodthirsty some couple can get with each other. This was pretty tame by comparison," Jen replied.

Sarah walked over to Logan.

"Well," he asked.

"You're sleeping on the couch tonight," Sarah replied

"Fair enough," he said.

"And you're not getting any sex for our anniversary this year," Sarah said back.

"Now wait just a damn minute," once again Sarah cut him off.

"Do you want to make it longer?" Sarah asked.

She and Jen walked out.

"Hitting him where it hurts, very nice" Jen said impressed.

"It's the only way that man learns anything." Sarah said back smiling.

Elsewhere the girls were introducing Lyra to some of the other students. Well introduce in a loose sense of the word, since while Lyra was getting acquainted with Megan and Kevin, Mercury, Dust, and Rockslide walked in. And of course being the rock stupid idiot he was, Santo leaped at the chance to pick a fight with a hulk only to be turned into rubble all over the Danger Room. Sarah and Jen were, well surprised, bad surprised.

"Mom I know what you and Jen are thinking and," Laura paused, "Santo basically asked for it." She said pointing at the rubble that used to be him.

"It's totally true Dr. Kinney," Cessily said, "He found out Lyra was a hulk, we told him not to, but he wouldn't listen."

Jen was still standing there mouth agape.

"Jen he's not dead," Sarah said.

"He's not dead?" Jen asked confused.

"Yeah I'm totally not Ms. She-Hulk," said Santo's disembodied voice.

"Sarah?" Jen asked.

"He's a psionic entity that makes a body out of rock, and right now he just needs time to reform it." Sarah said back.

"Oh I get it, thank goodness," Jen said relieved. "For a second there I thought, oh dear god. Whew." She then looked at Lyra, "Well how did it go Lyra?"

"Honestly," Lyra said, "I thought the gorilla the Red Ghost used was more of a challenge than him."

"Now that just hurts my manly feelings," Santo said his head starting to reform.

Later that night, Laura, Megan, Jubilee, and Lyra were sitting up on the roof bonding. Cessily and Soorya had also joined in.

"Laura if you don't mind me asking, how exactly does Jen know your father?" Lyra asked.

"Well our dad's kind of don't like each other, so I'm guessing your dad told your aunt about my dad," Laura replied.

"Geez you're like the complete opposite of your dad Laura," Cessily said, "I mean he just goes everywhere picking fights with everyone, but not you. No offense."

"None taken." Laura said.

"You should have seen this one time back when we were eight," Megan said, "We were at the Fisherman's Wharf in San Fransisco and some jackass makes a bad joke about our moms. I'm still surprised Uncle Logan didn't just pop the claws and rip the guy up."

"Oh yeah mom had him in the doghouse for two months after that," Laura said laughing. The other girls did the same.

"Dude Lyra I'll bet your family life is even more screwed up," Jubilee said jokingly.

"I never knew my mother, and I hardly ever speak to Bruce," Lyra replied.

There was silence for a bit.

"Sorry I didn't know," Jubilee said.

"Don't be. I didn't know him till I came to this time period anyway. He left me with Jen because he said she could teach me more about the world than he could," Lyra said back.

"Oh yeah, I forgot you're from a future ruled by Mad Max amazons," Jubilee said.

"It sounds like an awful place to live," Soorya commented.

"It is," Lyra said, "I'm actually glad I got stranded in this era. Nobody really liked me there anyway."

Sometime later, it was just Laura and Lyra on the rooftop, while the other girls had gone off.

"Hey Lyra," Laura asked, "If your dad never knew about you, how exactly did your... what did you call it again?"

"The United Sisterhood Republic," Lyra said back.

"Yeah them, how exactly did they make you?" Laura asked.

"The same way they made all my armsisters, in the Cradle. I guess you could say it's like a people factory." Lyra said.

"So you're basically a test tube baby?" Laura asked.

"Yes," Lyra replied, "Why?"

"I'm a test tube baby to," Laura said, "My mom was hired by these people called the Facility to make a clone of my dad, but she made me instead."

Lyra paused for a moment realizing just how much alike they were, "Do... you have a brother Laura?"

"Older, he's a super villain," Laura asked.

"I have a younger one, he's a barbarian from another planet," Lyra said.

Laura reflected for a moment, "Hey you got a cell phone?" she asked.

"Yeah," Lyra said.

"Lemme see," Laura asked.

"Why," asked Lyra.

"I wanna trade numbers with you," Laura said.

"Trade numbers?" Lyra asked as she handed her phone to Laura.

"Yeah, that's what friends do," Laura said as she entered numbers from both phones in. She handed Lyra her phone back when she was done. "We're friends now Lyra."

"Th-thank you," Lyra said taken aback by the gesture. "Laura what if I call you and there are things I can't put into words."

"Then we'll just be quiet over the phone together." Laura said.

Lyra's phone rang.

"Hello," Lyra said into it.

"Hey hon it's time to say goodbye to your new friend," It was Jen on the other end. "I'm waiting for you at the entrance so let's go."

Lyra was quiet.

"Hey don't you get all mopey on me now, you'll get to hang out with Laura again," Jen assured, Lyra smiled.

"I'll be right down Jen," Lyra said.

"I'll be right down who?" Jen asked.

"I'll be right down Aunt Jen," Lyra said.

"That's my girl," Jen said somewhat patronizingly.

Lyra hung up.

"Laura," Lyra said, "Thank you for being my friend."

"Sure," Laura said, "Hey next time we'll go to Coney Island."

"That sounds like fun," Lyra said and with that she jumped off the roof.

_A/N: *Light's a cigar* What, did ya think I was gone? Next chapter we're gonna up the gamma, don't you love a good pun._


	18. Parent Issues

_A/N: Okay not so much up the gamma as change gears but I had this idea and I wanted to get it out._

Chapter 18

**PARENT ISSUES**

_Flashback to fifteen years ago_

Heather brought Sarah to the house Department H had set her up with. It was wasn't big, but it was enough for a single parent to raise a child in. Department H had already filled it with everything they would need. The neighborhood was low key, not much in the way of neighbors so they could maintain a low profile. Sarah had surveyed it.

"It will do," she said.

"I'm glad you like it Sarah," Heather said back.

Sarah looked away wistfully, as though she were expecting Logan to show up at the last minute, but he and James had been called away on assignment.

"Sarah, people will tell you not to put any faith in Logan, but I know what I saw in his eyes when he held Laura. May be awhile before he admits to it but he'll come around," Heather said trying to reassure her, "Also beer's a good way to hold his attention, Moosehead's his brand."

"Thank you Heather," Sarah said.

"You learn these things when you're an Alpha Flight wife," Heather said, as she began to leave, "Call me up after you've gotten settled in we'll do lunch, on me."

"I'd like that," Sarah said.

After Heather had left Sarah went into Laura's nursery. Sarah had put her down for a nap. She watched her lying asleep in her crib.

"I won't let them take you from me," Sarah said softly, "Never."

Sarah was sure the Facility would come looking for her and Laura to take her back. If they did find her she wasn't letting them take her, not without a fight.

Sarah hadn't expected child rearing to be easy, but it wasn't long before she realized how little she knew about it. It was going to take more than a few parenting books she had looked through to care for an eight month old baby. Sarah eventually figured out most of the important things, keeping Laura fed, clean, and with the job Department H had set her up with Sarah was able to be around Laura all the time. Laura pretty much had a healthy nurturing environment to grow up in. A whole month went by and then one night Sarah's doorbell rang, she answered it. She saw Logan with his back turned smoking a cigar.

"Logan," she asked.

"Hey," he said back, "Guess you figure why I'm here."

"I put Laura to bed so you're kind of late," she said.

Logan let out a small acknowledging grunt.

"Why don't you come inside, I don't think there's any harm in just watching her sleep," Sarah said.

Sarah led Logan to Laura's nursery. Logan watched her for a bit before walking out, he then looked at Sarah. She could see there was still resentment in his eyes for what she did. He then walked away.

"I understand if you still don't completely trust me Logan. But I truly do love Laura ." she said to him.

"You say that. Are you sure this isn't just another experiment to you, being a mother? It was cause of people like you I got a metal skeleton and no memory." he said back.

Logan walked out of Sarah's house and she watched him take off in his car. Sarah then thought back to her own childhood, what her father did to her, and how her mother just stood by and let it happen. She then realized she had almost done the same thing. She had changed before it had been too late, but it didn't stop the guilt from coming. She had always held herself above her parents, but now she had to admit that not long ago she was just as bad as they were.

"No, I'm not that person anymore," she said to herself.

A few days later Logan and James were at the bar they frequented when they weren't on the clock at Department H. The whole situation with Sarah had really gotten to Logan. He wasn't quite sure what to think or feel about it. And the fact that Laura was a clone made things all the more confusing for him.

"How long are you gonna let this thing bother you?" James asked.

"Can you even just try and put yourself in my shoes Mac?"Logan asked back.

"Look I won't deny that this is, well peculiar for lack of a better word, but it doesn't change anything. Laura's here and well," Logan knew where this was heading.

"Oh no, don't even go there Mac," he said.

"That girl's gonna need her father," James said.

"The kid got to me for a second, really I'm just not cut out for this stuff. Ask me how to kill a man, and I'll show you how to do it in twenty-seven different ways. But being a parent, that ain't for the likes of me," Logan said.

"So what just like that you're gonna walk out?" James asked. Logan shot him a telling look. "Are you sure it's because you don't think you're fit to be a parent, or because you still resent Sarah?" James asked knowing he had hit the nail on the head. "She went to you, when she had no one else. She trusted you to get her and Laura out of there and you did. You owe it to her, and to Laura."

"I got them out of there, I don't owe that woman a damn thing," Logan said. He put on his Stetson and walked out. James continued drinking.

_Five months later_

"Come on sweety, come to mommy," Sarah said to Laura.

Laura was starting to learn how to walk. While Sarah knew that being a fast learner was practically in her DNA, she still couldn't help but be amazed seeing it for herself. What parent wouldn't be proud to see their child walking? Right now Laura had been trying to walk for the past few weeks, right now she seemed really close to actually doing it. Keeping her balance by holding onto the couch Laura got up on her feet while Sarah sat across the room from her.

"Good job," she said encouragingly, "Now try to walk over to me." She motioned with her hands to to get Laura to walk over to her.

Trying to balance herself Laura manged a couple steps, but stopped for a moment. Then she tried walking again and she managed to get to her mother.

"You did it, you walked," Sarah said with pride, hugging Laura. Laura giggled with glee. Sarah then looked up wishing Logan had been here to see it. "I know daddy didn't get to see you walk for the first time but he'll see you walk. I promise." Sarah kissed her on the head. "Are you hungry now?" Laura just made one of her noises that Sarah took as a yes. "Yes you are."

While Sarah was feeding Laura, the doorbell rang and Sarah went to answer it. It was Logan again. They just looked at each other for a bit. Sarah broke the ice.

"Hello Logan," she said.

"Hey," he said back.

"Logan," Sarah said, "I understand you have a job to do, and I understand that this is very different territory for you. But I'd like to know if you are really serious about helping me raise Laura or not."

Logan groaned.

"You really changed everything for me Sarah." He began.

"And next you're going to tell me that before this you were young, wild, and free. Logan you're making it sound like I forced you to help me. You offered." she said.

"Argh, I knew coming here was a mistake," just as he was about to walk away, Sarah grabbed him by the arm.

"Don't you just turn your back to me, without giving me a straight answer. Logan, why do you hate me so much?" she asked

"Tell me how you can act like everything's normal with that," he paused, "That thing in there?"

Sarah slapped him across the face for that comment.

"Don't you dare call her that! She is a child and her name is Laura!" Sarah said angrily.

"You made her in lab, you're lying to yourself if you think she's a kid." Logan said.

"I felt her grow inside my body for nine months. I gave birth to her, don't you ever tell me she isn't real Logan!" Sarah yelled back.

Then they heard something that sounded like glass shattering, and Laura started crying. Logan and Sarah rushed into the kitchen and saw the jar of baby food that Sarah had been feed her in pieces and all over the floor. Sarah picked her up from her high chair and tried to calm her down.

"Shh, shh it's alright sweety, we'll get you more. You don't need to cry", she said. Sarah turned to Logan, "Logan can you please hold her while her get some more food."

"What?" he asked.

"Just please do it," Sarah demanded.

She handed him Laura and went to get more baby food out of the pantry. All the while Logan held onto Laura. He lightly shook her up and down to get her to calm down, and she quickly stopped crying.

"Geez, thought my flamin' ears were gonna bleed," Logan said. "That mouth has to be from you." he said to Sarah.

Sarah scoffed, "Considering most of her DNA came from you, I'd say it's highly likely it's your fault she's so loud."

She twisted the cap off a jar and started feeding Laura again while she sat in Logan's lap. Afterwards Logan attempted to hand Laura back to Sarah, only for Laura to start crying again. Logan figured out pretty quickly what her deal was.

"You want me to hold you again don't you?" he asked with indignation. "Why are you kids so needy?"

"It's not that, she wants you. She wants her father." Sarah said.

"Using that word again," Logan said back.

"Do you have a better word?" Sarah asked rhetorically.

There was silence in the room for a moment.

"Logan, could you please stay, at least till I have to put Laura down for her nap?" Sarah asked.

Logan looked at Laura for a moment.

"Eh, I got nothing better to do." he replied.

They sat down on Sarah's couch.

"She started walking you know," Sarah said.

"She talking?" Logan asked.

"No, she's not there yet." Sarah said back.

They spent the next couple of hours just talking. They talked about mainly how difficult Sarah had it being a single parent, how she wanted Logan around more often. Logan made a couple comments about how much more Laura seemed to resemble her mother than him, to which Sarah replied that there were a few traits Sarah had "donated" that were more dominant. Sarah and Logan then took Laura back up to her nursery and Logan tucked her away for her nap. He and Sarah went back down to the living room.

"Sarah I'm not good with these things, but," he paused, "I owe you an apology. For how I've treated you. It's just that, no one asked me to make Laura. You were about to let those bastards make her into a machine and now you're acting like it never happened. Like it's always been this way."

"Logan," Sarah said, "If you think I don't feel guilty about what I did anymore, well I do. Everyday I do. Being a mother I suppose is my way of earning some sort of forgiveness from God knows who or what. Before Laura I never wanted a family, I thought my father stole that from me."

"What did he do?" Logan asked.

"He," Sarah paused, "He sexually abused me, and my sister. Our mother didn't do anything to stop him. It made me into that person that tried to make a weapon from your DNA. After I got pregnant, I changed."

"No way it was that simple," Logan said in disbelief.

"Well you're sort of right, I didn't change immediately." Sarah said back, "Before I got pregnant I only did it just to see if I could. After some time went by I started noticing that I was getting emotionally attached to Laura. I began to realize that my father hadn't stolen anything from me. I had put all my emotions in this, black hole I made out of my life. But Laura brought them back and, well you know how the rest goes."

"You gotta be the one woman I've never slept with, and you're the one who ends up giving me a child," Logan said, "I just don't know what to make of that. I've never wanted to be a father, hell I can't even remember if I had one. And if I did, well what kind of man raised me to be like this? How do I know I'm fit to raise a kid?"

Sarah put her hand on his.

"I've had to figure some of it out on my own. This hasn't been much easier for me." she said, "But it'll be much easier for the both of us, if we do it together, I know it."

She leaned in closely to him. Logan was taking in her scent. He felt intoxicated by it.

"It'll be better for Laura to."

Logan thought about what Sarah said for a moment.

"Alright, Sarah," he said, "I'll try it again, for real this time. No BS."

Overwhelmed by gratitude, Sarah started to kiss Logan. He didn't even put up a fight, but Sarah jumped back when she realized what she was doing.

"I am so sorry, I-I should not have done that," Sarah said embarrassed.

"Sorry for what," Logan said back.

"Logan if we keep this up, we'll end up in my bedroom, we'll have sex, I'll end up pregnant again, and the last thing we need right now is more children." Sarah said.

"I could, uh make a quick run for," Logan said.

"I'll be in my bedroom waiting," Sarah said quickly.

About ten minutes later, Logan and Sarah were making passionate love to each other for the first time.


End file.
